SAUDI ARABIA THE TERRORIST COUNTRY

FBI releases first secret 9/11 file: Saudi embassy official let two hijackers stay at his apartment and helped them in LA before the attack, was 'facilitator' for Al-Qaeda and distributed extremist Muslim literature

The newly-released document details a 2015 FBI interview with a staffer who worked at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles prior to the 9/11 attacks 

The man is only referred to in the document as PII

PII is accused of helping 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar shortly after they arrived in the United States  

Families of 9/11 victims are eager to probe potential Saudi government links to the attack 

By ANDREW COURT FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 01:34 EDT, 12 September 2021 

The FBI has released its first declassified 9/11 document exactly 20 years after the deadly terror attack which claimed the lives of 2,996 people.  

The document was published Saturday evening, a week after President Biden signed an executive order directing the agency to make the secret files available to the public for the first time. 

The order to release the documents came amid significant pressure from the families of 9/11 victims, who are eager to probe potential Saudi government links to the attack.

The FBI file that is significantly redacted details a 2015 interview with an official who worked at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles. 

He admitted that he allowed two hijackers to use his apartment and helped them travel around LA. He was found to be an al-Qaeda 'facilitator' by the FBI and the Saudi Consul General wanted to fire him for distributing extremist Muslim literature. 

He was also a close associate of two other Saudis, Omar al-Bayoumi and Fahad al-Thumairy, who the helped the hijackers.  

The new FBI file reveals that al-Bayoumi, who has admitted befriending them, worked as a 'ghost employee' at a Saudi aviation firm in the US.  

And it details how al-Thumairy gave the hijackers money, travel assistance and lodging.  

The Saudi official, who is only referred to as PII and who applied for US citizenship in 2015, is thought to be Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah who worked at the Saudi Consulate in Washington, DC. 

Al-Jarrah's name was accidently left unredacted in separate court papers penned by an FBI official. However, he has vigorously denied any involvement and insists he did not know any of the hijackers.  

Of the 19 hijackers on board the four doomed 9/11 planes, 15 were Saudi nationals. 

Last Wednesday, Saudi Arabia released a statement maintaining its innocence, saying 'it is lamentable that such false and malicious claims persist'.  

The hijackers are identified in the document as Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. Both of the men were on board American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon on September 11. 

The pair were reportedly already long-time affiliates of al-Qaeda with extensive fighting experience, and were chosen by Osama bin Laden to be a part of the ambitious 9/11 terror plot. 

The FBI document states that PII admitted showing al-Hazimi and al-Mihdhar the location of a Mediterranean restaurant in Los Angeles that was frequented by others suspected of providing logistical support to the terrorists. 

PII 'denied being tasked to do so' and stated that he simply 'assisted al-Hazimi and al-Mihdar because he is a good Muslim and helping two new students in town is the Muslim way'. 

The document also states that PII had his own sister move out and stay with another sister for a couple of weeks 'because he was having al-Hazimi and al-Mihdhar stay with him'.   

It also states that PII 'worked as a facilitator for the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and was associated with members of the Salafist Group For Preaching and Combat.'

It importantly notes that GIA and the GSPC 'have evolved into al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb'. 

Additionally, sources allegedly told the FBI that PII was 'very very vocal against Christians, Jews and enemies of Islam.'

Another stated that 'the Saudi Consul General in LA wanted to fire PII for storage and and distribution of extremist Muslim literature at the consulate'.   

According to the FBI's newly released document, 'PII was forthcoming with numerous specific details regarding his ... employment with the Consulate of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Los Angeles, [and] anecdotes of personal interactions with Consular leadership.'

During his FBI interview, PII described his duties at the Consulate 'providing assistance to Saudi college students studying in the US, providing translation assistance, executing administrative tasks, and distributing literature on Islam'. 

Interestingly, the FBI notes that the two hijackers PII is suspected of helping originally traveled to the US as college students.

It is unclear whether PII was ever granted US citizenship following his 2015 interview with the FBI, or whether he is still connected to the Saudi Consulate. 

The newly-released document also states that PII was an associate of Saudi man Omar al-Bayoumi. 

Al-Bayoumi has previously admitted to befriending al-Hazimi and al-Mihdhar, but denied ever working officially with them as part of a terrorist plot.  

Documents declassified in 2016 reveal that the FBI believed back in 2003 that it was 'possible that al-Bayoumi was an agent of the Saudi Government and that he may have been reporting on the local community to Saudi Government officials'.

He has also been described as a 'suspected Saudi intelligence agent'.  

Al-Bayoumi was arrested in London the week after the September 11 attacks and his phone calls and bank accounts were researched before he was released without charge.  

The final 9/11 Commission report, published in 2004, concluded that there 'was no credible evidence that al-Bayoumi believed in violent extremism or knowingly aided extremist groups.'

However, the newly-released document appears to say otherwise, and reveals that he had odd ties to the two terrorists. 

It states: 'al-Bayoumi's logistic support to al-Hazimi and al-Mihdhar included translation, travel assistance, lodging and financing. Anomalous money transfers within al-Bayoumi's bank accounts coincide with transactions wherein al-Bayoumi provides assistance to al-Hazimi and al-Mihdhar. 

The report also states al-Bayoumi's ex-wife told him they were 'at Jihad'.  

Interestingly, in his 2015 interview, PII recalled al-Bayoumi receiving special treatment at the Saudi Consulate in LA prior to the 9/11 attack. 

According to the newly-released FBI document: 'PIl described al-Bayoumi as a Saudi citizen treated with great respect inside the Saudi Consulate, well regarded by Consulate personnel who held a 'very high status' when he entered the building.

He alleged that stated al-Bayoumi's status was even higher than many of the Saudi persons who were in charge of the Consulate.

The reason for his high status among Saudi officials remains unclear.   

al-Bayoumi told investigators in 2003 that 'he came to the US to study work for a Saudi aviation company named Dallah AVCO. Regarding his employment, however, witnesses at AVCO described him as a 'ghost employee' who was 'one of approximately 50 individuals paid at the company who did not show up for work'. 

It is reported that al-Bayoumi now lives back in Saudi Arabia.

The new FBI file also highlights PII's links to Fahad al-Thumairy. 

Al-Thumairy was reported to the the Imam of the King Fahad Mosque in Los Angeles. 

Interestingly, al-Thumairy also served as an administrative officer at the Saudi Consulate and had an office there. 

The newly-released document also notes that al-Thumairy held extremist beliefs and was 'removed from his mosque for un-Islamic activity'. 

He reportedly left the United States just before the September 11 attacks.  

However, in his 2015 interview with the FBI, PII admitted to still being in contact with al-Thumairy. His current whereabouts has not been disclosed.   

The families of roughly 2,500 of those killed, and more than 20,000 people who suffered injuries, businesses and various insurers, have sued Saudi Arabia seeking billions of dollars.

However, newly-released FBI document does not confirm claims Saudi Arabian officials were involved in the planning of the September 11 attacks. 

But a statement on behalf of the organization 9/11 Families United, Terry Strada, whose husband Tom was killed on Sept. 11, said the document released by the FBI on Saturday put to bed any doubts about Saudi complicity in the attacks.

'Now the Saudis' secrets are exposed and it is well past time for the Kingdom to own up to its officials' roles in murdering thousands on American soil,' the statement, published by Reuters, read.  

AG Bill Barr demands Apple unlock two phones used by Saudi cadet responsible for shooting at Pensacola Navy base to see if he acted alone as he says the attack WAS terrorism motivated by 'jihadist ideology'

Attorney General William Barr branded the December attack at the US Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, an 'act of terrorism' at a Monday press conference

He urged Apple to cooperate with investigators trying to crack two iPhones used by gunman Mohammed Alshamrani

The FBI has been unable to access the phones as they are locked and encrypted

Barr accused Apple of refusing to provide 'substantive assistance' 

Apple says it has already provided investigators with all the relevant data 

Barr's latest appeal for Apple's cooperation marked an escalation of the DOJ's ongoing fight with the tech giant over personal privacy vs public safety 

The attorney general indicated that he intends to use the Alshamrani case to push for a solution to the DOJ's struggle to get around Apple security features 

DOJ officials say they need access to the Alshamrani's phones to determine whether he had discussed his plans with others at the base and if acted alone 

Three sailors were killed and eight others were wounded when Alshamrani opened fire in a classroom on December 6 

Alshamrani, 21, was then killed by a sheriff's deputy during the 15-minute attack 

Barr said on Monday that Alshamrani was motivated by 'jihadist ideology'

By MEGAN SHEETS  and VALERIE EDWARDS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and ASSOCIATED PRESS

PUBLISHED: 14:33 EST, 13 January 2020 

US Attorney General William Barr has demanded that Apple unlock two cellphones used by a gunman who carried out a mass shooting at a Florida military base. 

Barr made the high profile request at a press conference on Monday where he branded the attack an 'act of terrorism'.  

Three American sailors were killed and eight other people were wounded when Saudi military trainee Mohammed Alshamrani opened fire in a classroom at the US Naval Air Station in Pensacola on December 6.

Alshamrani, 21, who was training to be a naval flight officer, was then killed in a shoot-out with police. 

Earlier this week, the FBI asked Apple to help extract data from two iPhones that belonged to the gunman. 

Investigators have been unable to access the two devices - an iPhone 7 and an iPhone 5 - because they are locked and encrypted, according to a letter from the FBI's general counsel, Dana Boente.  

Barr's latest appeal for Apple's cooperation marked an escalation of the Justice Department's ongoing fight with the tech giant over the balance between personal privacy and public safety.

'This situation perfectly illustrates why it is critical that the public be able to get access to digital evidence,' Barr said, accusing Apple of providing no 'substantive assistance'.  

The attorney general indicated that he intends to use the Alshamrani case to push for a solution to the DOJ's struggle to get around Apple security features. 

'We don't want to get into a world where we have to spend months and even years exhausting efforts when lives are in the balance,' he said. 

'We should be able to get in when we have a warrant that establishes that criminal activity is underway.'

FBI officials obtained court authorization to search the phones but have failed to gain access by guessing the passwords, Boente said.  

Apple claimed in a statement that it has already provided investigators with all the relevant data held by the company and would continue to support the probe.

At least one of the phones was shot by a sheriff's deputy during the attack, but investigators believe they may still be able to extract data from the device, according to a person familiar with the matter.  

Sources close to Apple told the New York Times that the company will not back down from its unequivocal support of impossible-to-crack encryption.  

Apple has long touted security as a major feature of its phones and in 2014 began building encryption into devices that can only be unlocked with a password or fingerprint reader. Apple said that even the company is unable to bypass the security. 

Apple has said that obtaining data from phones would require it to build a backdoor, which would set a dangerous precedent for user privacy and security.  

Apple executives have warned that gaining access to one phone would compromise the security of all devices because law enforcement would demand to use the back door excessively.  

Meanwhile, law enforcement officials have accused Apple of providing a safe haven for criminals. 

Officials have managed to get around Apple's resistance in the past - most notably while investigating a terrorist attack that left 14 people dead in San Bernardino, California, in late 2015.  

Apple defied a court order to assist the FBI in its efforts to search an iPhone belonging to the suspect - sparking the public safety vs user privacy debate. 

The immediate dispute was resolved when the FBI found a private company to bypass the encryption. 

The over-arching debate, however, was escalated as Apple worked to ensure that neither the government nor private contractors would be able to gain access to devices in the future.  

In the Alshamrani case, DOJ officials say that they need access to the gunman's phones to see data and messages from encrypted apps like Signal or WhatsApp and determine whether he had discussed his plans with others at the base and if he was acting alone.  

At Monday's press conference Barr said that Alshamrani was motivated by 'jihadist ideology' and had posted anti-American, anti-Israeli and jihadist messages on social media. Some of those messages were shared within hours of the shooting.   

On September 11 of last year, Alshamrani allegedly posted a message which read: 'The countdown has begun.' 

Barr added that Alshamrani also visited the New York City memorial to the victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks days before the shooting.  

The attack brought fresh complications to US-Saudi relations at a time of heightened tensions between the United States and Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional rival. 

But according to Barr, Saudi Arabia provided 'complete and total support' to the American investigation of the incident.  

The attorney general also announced that the United States is removing 21 Saudi military students from a training program and sending them back to Saudi Arabia following the investigation.  

Fifteen of the 21 cadets had contact with child pornography and possessed jihadist or anti-American material, Barr said. 

Of the 21 cadets, 17 had social media profiles containing jihadi or anti-American content. 

None of the cadets are accused of having advanced knowledge of the shooting.

It was not immediately clear on what grounds the students were being removed from the program, though the official said they were not suspected of having played any role in the attack. 

Officials have said Alshamrani hosted a party before the shooting, where he and others watched videos of mass shootings. 

The gunman, who used a Glock 9 mm weapon that had been purchased legally in Florida, had also apparently taken to Twitter before the shooting to criticize US support of Israel and accuse America of being anti-Muslim, another US official said last month. 

There are currently about 850 Saudi students in the United States for military training. 

Alshamrani was on the base as part of a US Navy training program designed to foster links with foreign allies. 

He had started training in the US in 2017 and had been in the Pensacola area for the past 18 months, authorities said. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, said that Alshamrani 'had a deep-seated hatred for the United States'.

'For us to be bringing in these foreign nationals, you have to take precautions. Bringing in people from Saudi Arabia - we need to be on guard against that,' the governor added. 

Alshamrani was one of about 200 foreigners at the Pensacola base and thousands around the US who participate in military training, a program that US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said was 'very important to our national security'.

The December shooting raised questions about how well international military students are screened before they attend training at American bases. 

Some lawmakers, including a top Republican ally of President Donald Trump, have called for Saudi Arabia to be suspended from the American military training program.

Trump called for the program to be reviewed. But Sen Lindsey Graham, R-SC, said the program needed to be reevaluated after the attack. 

A Saudi commanding officer had ordered all students from the country to remain at one location at the base after the attack.

National security adviser Robert O'Brien said in an interview on Fox News that the shooting 'showed that there had been errors in the way that we vetted' the students. 

The actions being taken by the Justice Department and Defense Department to remove the Saudi students are to 'protect our service men and women,' he said.  

More Citizens of Saudi Arabia Have Joined Islamic State Than Any Other Country

by EDWIN MORA

9 Mar 2017

Breitbart

The Sunni Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) has boasted that key U.S. Middle East ally Saudi Arabia is the top provider of terrorists for the jihadist group in Iraq, reports Fox News, citing Iraqi military sources.

Sunni Saudi Arabia shares an estimated 500-mile-long border with war-ravaged Iraq.

Nevertheless, Fox News reports that the Saudi jihadists crossed into Iraq over the border the country shares with both Turkey and Syria.

The news outlet learned from unnamed Iraqi intelligence sources that jihadist from the Saudi kingdom comprise nearly one-third (up to 30 percent) of all ISIS terrorists in Iraq, adding that “Saudis comprise the largest single contingent of ISIS fighters, with Russian Chechens making up the second-largest contingent.”

Speaking to the news outlet on condition of anonymity, a high-ranking Iraqi intelligence officer said, “The Saudi presence in ISIS is very large. What we have left are mainly Iraqis and Saudis.”

“The Saudis make up a large number of suicide bombers, as they already have the ground work of radicalization installed in their minds from radical sheikhs in Saudi [Arabia]. And we’ve caught important ISIS commanders,” he added.

Fox News points out that it has seen various ISIS-linked photographs and documents showing identification and credit cards of Saudi terrorists.

The report comes nearly a month after an article by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) revealed that President Donald Trump’s administration is considering forming a military alliance with major Middle East allies, including the Sunni Saudi kingdom, to combat Shiite Iran.

President Trump’s anti-Iran coalition would bring together Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Israel, Egypt, and Jordan.

The Sharia law-compliant kingdom Saudi Arabia is regarded as a hotbed and top global exporter of radical Islamic thought, namely the Sunni extremist ideology of Wahhabism, adhered to by ISIS and various other jihadists groups.

Saudi Arabia imposes extremely strict Islamic laws on its citizens.

“Wahhabism was born in Saudi Arabia. Saudi is leading those extremist organizations like ISIS,” an anonymous Iraqi official told Fox News. “They have high-ranking officials and fighters among their ranks. Saudi is nothing without U.S. protection; it is only a bite for Iran to eat.”

Sunni Saudi Arabia considers Shiite Iran its regional rival. Iran exerts tremendous influence over the Shiite-led government of Iraq where militias backed by the Islamic Republic are fighting ISIS.

Saudi Arabia is part of the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The Sunni kingdom, which has cracked down on the jihadist group within its borders, has also suffered attacks carried out by ISIS.

How US covered up Saudi role in 9/11

By Paul Sperry

April 17, 2016

New York Post

In its report on the still-censored “28 pages” implicating the Saudi government in 9/11, “60 Minutes” last weekend said the Saudi role in the attacks has been “soft-pedaled” to protect America’s delicate alliance with the oil-rich kingdom.

That’s quite an understatement.

Actually, the kingdom’s involvement was deliberately covered up at the highest levels of our government. And the coverup goes beyond locking up 28 pages of the Saudi report in a vault in the US Capitol basement. Investigations were throttled. Co-conspirators were let off the hook.

Case agents I’ve interviewed at the Joint Terrorism Task Forces in Washington and San Diego, the forward operating base for some of the Saudi hijackers, as well as detectives at the Fairfax County (Va.) Police Department who also investigated several 9/11 leads, say virtually every road led back to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, as well as the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles.

Yet time and time again, they were called off from pursuing leads. A common excuse was “diplomatic immunity.”

Those sources say the pages missing from the 9/11 congressional inquiry report which comprise the entire final chapter dealing with “foreign support for the September 11 hijackers” details incontrovertible evidence gathered from both CIA and FBI case files of official Saudi assistance for at least two of the Saudi hijackers who settled in San Diego.

Some information has leaked from the redacted section, including a flurry of pre-9/11 phone calls between one of the hijackers, Saudi handlers in San Diego and the Saudi Embassy, and the transfer of some $130,000 from then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar’s family checking account to yet another of the hijackers’ Saudi handlers in San Diego.

An investigator who worked with the JTTF in Washington complained that instead of investigating Bandar, the US government protected him — literally. He said the State Department assigned a security detail to help guard Bandar not only at the embassy, but also at his McLean, Va., mansion.

The source added that the task force wanted to jail a number of embassy employees, but the embassy complained to the US attorney and their diplomatic visas were revoked as a compromise.

Former FBI agent John Guandolo, who worked 9/11 and related al Qaeda cases out of the bureau’s Washington field office, says Bandar should have been a key suspect in the 9/11 probe.

“The Saudi ambassador funded two of the 9/11 hijackers through a third party,” Guandolo said. “He should be treated as a terrorist suspect, as should other members of the Saudi elite class who the US government knows are currently funding the global jihad.”

But Bandar held sway over the FBI.

After he met on Sept. 13, 2001, with President Bush in the White House, where the two old family friends shared cigars on the Truman Balcony, the FBI evacuated dozens of Saudi officials from multiple cities, including at least one Osama bin Laden family member on the terror watch list. Instead of interrogating the Saudis, FBI agents acted as security escorts for them, even though it was known at the time that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.

“The FBI was thwarted from interviewing the Saudis we wanted to interview by the White House,” said former FBI agent Mark Rossini, who was involved in the investigation of al Qaeda and the hijackers. The White House “let them off the hook.”

What’s more, Rossini said the bureau was told no subpoenas could be served to produce evidence tying departing Saudi suspects to 9/11. The FBI, in turn, iced local investigations that led back to the Saudis.

“The FBI covered their ears every time we mentioned the Saudis,” said former Fairfax County Police Lt. Roger Kelly. “It was too political to touch.”

Added Kelly, who headed the National Capital Regional Intelligence Center: “You could investigate the Saudis alone, but the Saudis were ‘hands-off.’”

Even Anwar al-Awlaki, the hijackers’ spiritual adviser, escaped our grasp. In 2002, the Saudi-sponsored cleric was detained at JFK on passport fraud charges only to be released into the custody of a “Saudi representative.”

It wasn’t until 2011 that Awlaki was brought to justice by way of a CIA drone strike.

Strangely, “The 9/11 Commission Report,” which followed the congressional inquiry, never cites the catch-and-release of Awlaki, and it mentions Bandar only in passing, his name buried in footnotes.

Two commission lawyers investigating the Saudi support network for the hijackers complained their boss, executive director Philip Zelikow, blocked them from issuing subpoenas and conducting interviews of Saudi suspects.

9/11 Commission member John Lehman was interested in the hijackers’ connections to Bandar, his wife and the Islamic affairs office at the embassy. But every time he tried to get information on that front, he was stonewalled by the White House.

“They were refusing to declassify anything having to do with Saudi Arabia,” Lehman was quoted as saying in the book, “The Commission.”

Did the US scuttle the investigation into foreign sponsorship of 9/11 to protect Bandar and other Saudi elite?

“Things that should have been done at the time were not done,” said Rep. Walter Jones, the North Carolina Republican who’s introduced a bill demanding President Obama release the 28 pages. “I’m trying to give you an answer without being too explicit.”

A Saudi reformer with direct knowledge of embassy involvement is more forthcoming.

“We made an ally of a regime that helped sponsor the attacks,” said Ali al-Ahmed of the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs. “I mean, let’s face it.”

Paul Sperry is a former Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington.”

Tsunami of money from Saudi Arabia funding 24,000 madrassas in Pakistan

January 30, 2016

Zee News, India

Washington: About 24,000 'madrassas' in Pakistan are funded by Saudi Arabia which has unleashed a "tsunami of money" to "export intolerance", a top American senator has said adding that the US needs to end its effective acquiescence to the Saudi sponsorship of radical Islamism.

Senator Chris Murphy said Pakistan is the best example of where money coming from Saudi Arabia is funneled to religious schools that nurture hatred and terrorism.

"In 1956, there were 244 madrassas in Pakistan. Today, there are 24,000. These schools are multiplying all over the globe. These schools, by and large, don't teach violence. They aren't the minor leagues for al-Qaeda or ISIS. But they do teach a version of Islam that leads very nicely into an anti-Shia, anti-Western militancy.

"Those 24,000 religious schools in Pakistan thousands of them are funded with money that originates in Saudi Arabia," Murphy said in an address yesterday to the Council on Foreign Relations, a top American think-tank.

According to some estimates, since the 1960s, the Saudis have funnelled over USD 100 billion into funding schools and mosques all over the world with the mission of spreading puritanical Wahhabi Islam.

As a point of comparison, researchers estimate that the former Soviet Union spent about USD 7 billion exporting its communist ideology from 1920-1991.

"Less-well-funded governments and other strains of Islam can hardly keep up with the tsunami of money behind this export of intolerance," Murphy said.

"The uncomfortable truth is for all the positive aspects of our alliance with Saudi Arabia, there is another side to Saudi Arabia that we can no longer afford to ignore as our fight against Islamic extremism becomes more focused and more complicated," he said.

"The United States should suspend supporting Saudi Arabia's military campaign in Yemen, at the very least until we get assurances that this campaign does not distract from the fight against IS and al-Qaeda, and until we make some progress on the Saudi export of Wahhabism," he said.

Murphy demanded that Congress should not sign off on any more US military sales to Saudi Arabia until similar assurances are granted. He said that the political alliance between the House of Saud - Saudi Arabia's ruling royal family - and orthodox Wahhabi clerics is as old as the nation, resulting in billions funnelled to and through the Wahhabi movement.

The vicious terrorist groups that Americans know by name are Sunni in derivation, and greatly influenced by Wahhabi and Salafist teachings, Murphy said adding that leaders of both Democratic and Republican parties should avoid the extremes of this debate, and enter into a real conversation about how America can help the moderate voices within Islam win out over those who sow seeds of extremism.

Saudi opposition clerics make sectarian call to jihad in Syria

Reuters
Oct. 05, 2015

RIYADH: Dozens of Islamist Saudi clerics have called on Arab and Muslim countries to "give all moral, material, political and military" support to what they term a jihad, or holy war, against Syria's government and its Iranian and Russian backers.

Although the clerics who signed the online statement are not affiliated with the government, their strong sectarian and anti-Christian language reflects mounting anger among many Saudis over Russian and Iranian involvement in Syria's war.

Russia last week started airstrikes against Syrian opposition targets that it describes as aimed at weakening ISIS, a move Riyadh has denounced. The clerics' statement compared it to the Soviet Union's 1980 invasion of Afghanistan, which prompted an international jihad.

"The holy warriors of Syria are defending the whole Islamic nation. Trust them and support them ... because if they are defeated, God forbid, it will be the turn of one Sunni country after another," the statement said.

Riyadh, along with Turkey and other Gulf states, is a main supporter of rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad, backed by Iran and Russia, but it is also worried about the rise of jihadi groups such as ISIS among the opposition.

Saudi jets have joined airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, while the government has decreed long prison terms for anyone who supports the group, whose sympathizers have killed dozens in attacks in the kingdom this year.

The bloodshed in Syria, part of a wider struggle for regional supremacy between Saudi Arabia and Iran, has aggravated sectarian anger across the Middle East and drawn religiously motivated foreign fighters to both sides.

Riyadh's state-affiliated clergy have already termed the war a jihad for Syrians, but they have also denounced ISIS and al-Qaeda and said that Saudi citizens must not go abroad to fight or give the rebels money except via government channels.

The 53 signatories, including prominent Islamists with a history of opposing the government, were careful not to contradict that message, for example by calling on Saudis to join the jihad, but they also did not speak out against travel for jihad.

Their letter, which used sectarian terms for both Iran and Assad's Alawite sect, a Shiite offshoot, also portrayed Russian involvement as part of an Orthodox Christian crusade, and attacked the West for denying the rebels anti-aircraft weapons.

"The Western-Russian coalition with the Safavids (Iran) and the Nusairis (Alawites) are making a real war against the Sunni people and their countries," the statement said.

Saudi Arabia arrests 431 with ISIS ties

Posted on 19 July 2015

Reuters

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia has arrested 431 people suspected of belonging to Islamic State (IS) cells and thwarted attacks on mosques, security forces and a diplomatic mission, the interior ministry said on Saturday.

The announcement came after a car bomb exploded at a checkpoint near the kingdom's highest security prison on Thursday, killing the driver and wounding two security officials in an attack claimed by Islamic State.

A string of deadly attacks carried out by followers of the ultra-hardline militant group based in Iraq and Syria has fueled concerns about a growing threat of militancy in the world's top oil exporter.

"The number arrested to date is 431, most of them citizens, in addition to participants from other nationalities ... six successive suicide operations which targeted mosques in the Eastern province on every Friday timed with assassinations of security men were thwarted," the ministry statement posted on the official news agency SPA said.

"Terrorist plots to target a diplomatic mission, security and government facilities in Sharurah province and the assassination of security men were thwarted," it said.

The ministry did not elaborate on when the men were detained, but previous announcements that scores of suspects have been arrested suggest it was over the course of months.

Their alleged offences cited by the ministry ranged from smuggling explosives, surveying potential attack sites, providing transport and material support to bombers, smuggling in explosives from abroad and manufacturing suicide vests.

Islamic State has called on supporters to carry out attacks in the kingdom and killed 25 people in two suicide bombings at Shi'ite Muslim mosques in the country's east in May. A Saudi man, reportedly aided by several other men from the kingdom, blew himself up in a Shi'ite mosque and killed 27 worshippers in June.

The group says its priority target is the Arabian peninsula and in particular Saudi Arabia, home of Islam's holiest places, from where it plans to expel Shi'ite Muslims.

The interior ministry said the suspects arrested in the kingdom were carrying out "schemes directed from trouble spots abroad and are aimed at inciting sectarian strife and chaos".

US Defence Secretary Ash Carter will travel next week to Saudi Arabia as part of the Obama administration's efforts to convince sceptical allies in the region about the benefits of the Iran nuclear deal.

In an interview with the New York Times this week, President Obama urged America's traditional Sunni allies in the Gulf to better embrace their Shi'ite citizens.

"My argument has been to my allies in the region, let's stop giving Iran opportunities for mischief. Strengthen your own societies. Be inclusive," Obama said.

Arab Bill Gates Could Turn 'Shariah Creep' Into Full Trot

07/07/2015
Investors Business Daily

Islamofascism: Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a senior member of the Saudi monarchy, says he'll pledge his $32 billion fortune to charity. In light of his past donations, this is a highly concerning development.

Alwaleed says he will model his endowment on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, only with a twist: Much of his philanthropic work will help "foster cultural understanding" of Islam in America and the West.

That means promoting the kingdom's brand of Islam, while censoring criticism of Islam.

Published reports and books reveal Alwaleed already has pledged millions to radical Muslim Brotherhood front groups that have a secret plan to Islamize America and spread Shariah law throughout the West. These pro-jihad groups can now count on a massive and virtually endless infusion of cash to their war chests.

Alwaleed has extensive ties to Brotherhood leaders. For example, he tapped "tele-Islamist" Tariq Al-Suwaidan, widely reported to be a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait, as the channel director of his Islamic religious TV outlet Al Risala.

The network's "Supreme Advisory Committee" has included Abdullah Omar Naseef, whom ex-federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy says is "a major Muslim Brotherhood figure" who has helped raise funds for al-Qaida.

Alwaleed made headlines after 9/11 when he donated $10 million to the World Trade Center fund only to have then-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani return the check. After presenting the money, the Saudi billionaire issued a press statement blaming the terrorist attacks on U.S. support for Israel while "our Palestinian brethren continue to be slaughtered at the hands of the Israelis."

The next year, Alwaleed donated a whopping $27 million to a Saudi telethon for the violent Palestinian intifada against Israel, according to the Clarion Project.

Also in 2002, he gave $500,000 to the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, which federal authorities have linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

In 2005, moreover, he spent $40 million to expand Islamic studies at U.S. colleges — donating $20 million to Harvard University to create a campuswide Shariah law studies program, while pumping another $20 million into Georgetown University for a "Muslim-Christian understanding" program run by notorious Islamic apologist John Esposito.

Despite fawning press reports, Alwaleed's charitable pledge is no cause for celebration. It's cause for alarm. His billions will finance Islamist pressure groups who exist to force Western civilization to yield to Islamic no-go zones, Shariah courts and blasphemy laws.

If unmatched by patriotic philanthropists, the Saudi prince's huge endowment could be a major setback for state and local efforts to push back against Islamization.

How the FBI is whitewashing the Saudi connection to 9/11

By Paul Sperry

April 12, 2015

New York Post

Just 15 days before the 9/11 attacks, a well-connected Saudi family suddenly abandoned their luxury home in Sarasota, Fla., leaving behind jewelry, clothes, opulent furniture, a driveway full of cars including a brand new Chrysler PT Cruiser and even a refrigerator full of food.

About the only thing not left behind was a forwarding address. The occupants simply vanished without notifying their neighbors, realtor or even mail carrier.

The 3,300-square-foot home on Escondito Circle belonged to Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi adviser to the nephew of then-King Fahd. But at the time, it was occupied by his daughter and son-in-law, who beat a hasty retreat back to Saudi Arabia just two weeks before the attacks after nearly a six-year stay here.

Neighbors took note of the troubling coincidence and called the FBI, which opened an investigation that led to the startling discovery that at least one “family member” trained at the same flight school as some of the 9/11 hijackers in nearby Venice, Fla.

The investigation into the prominent Saudi family’s ties to the hijackers started on Sept. 19, 2001, and remained active for several years. It was led by the FBI’s Tampa field office but also involved the bureau’s field offices in New York and Washington, and also the Southwest Florida Domestic Security Task Force.

Agents identified persons of interest in the case, establishing their ties to other terrorists, sympathies with Osama bin Laden and anti-American remarks. They looked into their bank accounts, colleges and places of employment. They
tracked at least one suspect’s re-entry into the US.

The Saudi-9/11 connection in Florida was no small part of the overall 9/11 investigation. Yet it was never shared with Congress. Nor was it mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.

Now it’s being whitewashed again, in a newly released report by the 9/11 Review Commission, set up last year by Congress to assess “any evidence now known to the FBI that was not considered by the 9/11 Commission.” Though the FBI acknowledges the Saudi family was investigated, it maintains the probe was a dead end.

The review panel highlighted one local FBI report generated from the investigation that said Abdulaziz and Anoud al-Hijji, the prominent Saudi couple who “fled” their home, had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.”

But: “The FBI told the Review Commission that the communication was poorly written and wholly unsubstantiated,” the panel noted in its 128-page report. “When questioned later by others in the FBI, the special agent who wrote (it) was unable to provide any basis for the contents of the document or explain why he wrote it as he did.”

How strange. Yet panelists did not interview the unidentified agent for themselves. They just accepted headquarters’ impeachment of his work.

Odder still, the agent’s report was just one of many other FBI communications detailing ties between the Saudi family and the hijackers. In fact, the Tampa office of the FBI recently was ordered to turn over more than 80,000 pages of documents filling some 27 boxes from its 9/11 investigation to a federal judge hearing a Freedom of Information Act case filed by local journalists over the Sarasota angle. The judge is sorting through the boxes to determine which documents should remain classified. Most are marked “SECRET/NOFORN,” meaning no foreign nationals, a classification reserved for highly sensitive materials.

“The report provides no plausible explanation for the contradiction between the FBI’s current claim that it found nothing and its 2002 memo finding many connections between the Sarasota family and the 9/11 terrorists,” Thomas Julin, the attorney who filed the FOIA lawsuit against the FBI, told the Miami Herald.

The panel’s report also doesn’t explain why visitor security logs for the gated Sarasota community and photos of license tags matched vehicles driven by the hijackers, including 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta.

The three-member review panel was appointed by FBI Director James Comey, who also officially released the findings.

Former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, who in 2002 chaired the congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11, maintains the FBI is covering up a Saudi support cell in Sarasota for the hijackers. He says the al-Hijjis’ “urgent” pre-9/11 exit suggests “someone may have tipped them off” about the coming attacks.

Graham has been working with a 14-member group in Congress to urge President Obama to declassify 28 pages of the final report of his inquiry which were originally redacted, wholesale, by President George W. Bush.

“The 28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11, and they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier,” he said, adding, “I am speaking of the kingdom,” or government, of Saudi Arabia, not just wealthy individual Saudi donors.

Sources who have read the censored Saudi section say it cites CIA and FBI case files that directly implicate officials of the Saudi Embassy in Washington and its consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks which, if true, would make 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war by a foreign government. The section allegedly identifies high-level Saudi officials and intelligence agents by name, and details their financial transactions and other dealings with the San Diego hijackers. It zeroes in on the Islamic Affairs Department of the Saudi Embassy, among other Saudi entities.

The review commission, however, concludes there is “no evidence” that any Saudi official provided assistance to the hijackers, even though the panel failed to interview Graham or his two key investigators, former Justice Department attorney Dana Lesemann and FBI investigator Michael Jacobson, who ran down FBI leads tying Saudi officials to the San Diego hijackers and documented their findings in the 28 pages.

Graham smells a rat: “This is a pervasive pattern of covering up the role of Saudi Arabia in 9/11 by all of the agencies of the federal government which have access to information that might illuminate Saudi Arabia’s role in 9/11.”

Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup

By Paul Sperry

December 15, 2013

The New York Post

After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors.

But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.

It was kept secret and remains so today.

President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by comparison is about 1,000 words).

A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks.

Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) can’t reveal the nation identified by it without violating federal law. So they’ve proposed Congress pass a resolution asking President Obama to declassify the entire 2002 report, “Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.”

Some information already has leaked from the classified section, which is based on both CIA and FBI documents, and it points back to Saudi Arabia, a presumed ally.

The Saudis deny any role in 9/11, but the CIA in one memo reportedly found “incontrovertible evidence” that Saudi government officials, not just wealthy Saudi hardliners, but high-level diplomats and intelligence officers employed by the kingdom, helped the hijackers both financially and logistically. The intelligence files cited in the report directly implicate the Saudi embassy in Washington and consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war.

The findings, if confirmed, would back up open-source reporting showing the hijackers had, at a minimum, ties to several Saudi officials and agents while they were preparing for their attacks inside the United States. In fact, they got help from Saudi VIPs from coast to coast:

LOS ANGELES: Saudi consulate official Fahad al-Thumairy allegedly arranged for an advance team to receive two of the Saudi hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, as they arrived at LAX in 2000. One of the advance men, Omar al-Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi intelligence agent, left the LA consulate and met the hijackers at a local restaurant. (Bayoumi left the United States two months before the attacks, while Thumairy was deported back to Saudi Arabia after 9/11.)

SAN DIEGO: Bayoumi and another suspected Saudi agent, Osama Bassnan, set up essentially a forward operating base in San Diego for the hijackers after leaving LA. They were provided rooms, rent and phones, as well as private meetings with an American al Qaeda cleric who would later become notorious, Anwar al-Awlaki, at a Saudi-funded mosque he ran in a nearby suburb. They were also feted at a welcoming party. (Bassnan also fled the United States just before the attacks.)

WASHINGTON: Then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar and his wife sent checks totaling some $130,000 to Bassnan while he was handling the hijackers. Though the Bandars claim the checks were “welfare” for Bassnan’s supposedly ill wife, the money nonetheless made its way into the hijackers’ hands.

Other al Qaeda funding was traced back to Bandar and his embassy, so much so that by 2004 Riggs Bank of Washington had dropped the Saudis as a client.

The next year, as a number of embassy employees popped up in terror probes, Riyadh recalled Bandar.

“Our investigations contributed to the ambassador’s departure,” an investigator who worked with the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Washington told me, though Bandar says he left for “personal reasons.”

FALLS CHURCH, VA.: In 2001, Awlaki and the San Diego hijackers turned up together again, this time at the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, a Pentagon-area mosque built with funds from the Saudi Embassy. Awlaki was recruited 3,000 miles away to head the mosque. As its imam, Awlaki helped the hijackers, who showed up at his doorstep as if on cue. He tasked a handler to help them acquire apartments and IDs before they attacked the Pentagon.

Awlaki worked closely with the Saudi Embassy. He lectured at a Saudi Islamic think tank in Merrifield, Va., chaired by Bandar. Saudi travel itinerary documents I’ve obtained show he also served as the official imam on Saudi Embassy-sponsored trips to Mecca and tours of Saudi holy sites.

Most suspiciously, though, Awlaki fled the United States on a Saudi jet about a year after 9/11.

As I first reported in my book, “Infiltration,” quoting from classified US documents, the Saudi-sponsored cleric was briefly detained at JFK before being released into the custody of a “Saudi representative.” A federal warrant for Awlaki’s arrest had mysteriously been withdrawn the previous day. A US drone killed Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.

HERNDON, VA.: On the eve of the attacks, top Saudi government official Saleh Hussayen checked into the same Marriott Residence Inn near Dulles Airport as three of the Saudi hijackers who targeted the Pentagon. Hussayen had left a nearby hotel to move into the hijackers’ hotel. Did he meet with them? The FBI never found out. They let him go after he “feigned a seizure,” one agent recalled. (Hussayen’s name doesn’t appear in the separate 9/11 Commission Report, which clears the Saudis.)

SARASOTA, FLA.: 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and other hijackers visited a house owned by Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi adviser to the nephew of King Fahd. FBI agents investigating the connection in 2002 found that visitor logs for the gated community and photos of license tags matched vehicles driven by the hijackers. Just two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, the Saudi luxury home was abandoned. Three cars, including a new Chrysler PT Cruiser, were left in the driveway. Inside, opulent furniture was untouched.

Democrat Bob Graham, the former Florida senator who chaired the Joint Inquiry, has asked the FBI for the Sarasota case files, but can’t get a single, even heavily redacted, page released. He says it’s a “coverup.”
Is the federal government protecting the Saudis? Case agents tell me they were repeatedly called off pursuing 9/11 leads back to the Saudi Embassy, which had curious sway over White House and FBI responses to the attacks.

Just days after Bush met with the Saudi ambassador in the White House, the FBI evacuated from the United States dozens of Saudi officials, as well as Osama bin Laden family members. Bandar made the request for escorts directly to FBI headquarters on Sept. 13, 2001, just hours after he met with the president. The two old family friends shared cigars on the Truman Balcony while discussing the attacks.

Bill Doyle, who lost his son in the World Trade Center attacks and heads the Coalition of 9/11 Families, calls the suppression of Saudi evidence a “coverup beyond belief.” Last week, he sent out an e-mail to relatives urging them to phone their representatives in Congress to support the resolution and read for themselves the censored 28 pages.
Astonishing as that sounds, few lawmakers in fact have bothered to read the classified section of arguably the most important investigation in US history.

Granted, it’s not easy to do. It took a monthlong letter-writing campaign by Jones and Lynch to convince the House intelligence panel to give them access to the material.

But it’s critical they take the time to read it and pressure the White House to let all Americans read it. This isn’t water under the bridge. The information is still relevant today. Pursuing leads further, getting to the bottom of the foreign support, could help head off another 9/11.

As the frustrated Joint Inquiry authors warned, in an overlooked addendum to their heavily redacted 2002 report, “State-sponsored terrorism substantially increases the likelihood of successful and more lethal attacks within the United States.”

Their findings must be released, even if they forever change US-Saudi relations. If an oil-rich foreign power was capable of orchestrating simultaneous bulls-eye hits on our centers of commerce and defense a dozen years ago, it may be able to pull off similarly devastating attacks today.

Members of Congress reluctant to read the full report ought to remember that the 9/11 assault missed its fourth target: them.

Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “Infiltration” and “Muslim Mafia.”

After 10 years, few changes in Saudi extremist textbooks

By Benjamin Mann

Washington D.C., Sep 14, 2011 / 02:36 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A new report shows that Saudi Arabia, home to 15 of the 19 terrorist hijackers of 9/11, continues to promote a violent form of Islam through its school system and textbooks 10 years after the attacks.

“The Saudi government has given over its textbooks to the clerical Wahhabi extremists that it partners with to maintain control of the country,” said Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom, in a Sept. 13 interview with CNA.

As a consequence, the texts continue to teach students that “the Jews and the Christians are enemies” of Muslims, and that “the struggle of this (Muslim) nation with the Jews and Christians will continue as long as God wills.”

While describing Jews as “apes” and Christians as “swine,” the middle-school and high-school books command death for apostates from Islam, while encouraging violence against non-Muslims who refuse to make a “covenant” or come “under protection” of the Muslims.

In the general usage, Jihad is divided into the following categories: “Wrestling with the unbelievers by calling them (to Islam) and fighting them,” teaches the 12th-grade text “Hadith and Islamic Culture,” used in the 2010-2011 school year by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Education.

In a report released on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Shea notes that “some Saudis themselves have acknowledged the problem posed by the nation’s curriculum.”

“Nevertheless, the encouragement of violence and extremism remains an integral part of Saudi Arabia’s national textbooks, particularly those on religion. Five million Saudi students are exposed to them in Saudi classrooms each year.”

“Moreover, as the controlling authority of the two holiest shrines of Islam, Saudi Arabia is able to disseminate its religious materials among the millions of Muslims making the hajj each year. Hence, these teachings can have a wide and deep influence,” the report noted.

Shea said that the Saudi government's uneasy truce with extremist elements, which she compared to a “protection racket”, dates back to 1979, when an “Al Qaeda prototype” attempted to seize Mecca's Grand Mosque and overthrow the country's monarchy.

The event “very much shook up the Saudi monarchy,” particularly since it came during the same year as the Iranian revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

“All of those things made the Saudi monarchy very insecure,” Shea explained. “They ended up in a grand bargain with the clerics, to maintain peace in the kingdom and stop the threats against their own rule.”

“They gave them the Islamic affairs ministry, to export their creed around the world and they gave them the education ministry, to indoctrinate Saudis themselves.”

After the 9/11 attacks, “we all learned that in fact Saudis were being radicalized, and attacking us and others.” Shea said that U.S. diplomats “made a few complaints, but there was no sustained diplomacy, not on the par that's needed to see this change.”

The religious freedom director compared this weak U.S. effort to the substantial progress made on the subject of terrorist funding, “to the point where the Saudi religious establishment issued a fatwa in 2010, saying that financing terror was a sin. That's an amazing breakthrough. It took a long time to get that.”

“But there's no hope in sight for reform of the Saudi textbooks, because there isn't that kind of pressure from the United States.” Shea thinks that's because “the U.S. just doesn't want to get involved in the ideological contest.”

More specifically, she believes that both Republican and Democratic administrations have been reluctant to quarrel with Saudi officials over what's seen as an exclusively religious matter.

“I think that the diplomats, frankly, are very uncomfortable talking about religion. They don't know how to analyze it, and they are really blind to it. There is a reluctance, by diplomats, to talk about religion. (As though) somehow they're 'criticizing Islam' if they say that.”

“I think that they're afraid to anger the Saudis. But they're not afraid (when) insisting that terrorist financing stop. They've made some success there. They need to see this in the same light.”

Diplomatic pressure would succeed if applied, Shea says, because of the oil-rich kingdom's sensitivity to criticism and its need to maintain a good relationship with the U.S.

“The Saudis do care about their reputation. And seeing the United States as the guarantor of their own security (against regional rivals), they don't defend this education. When it's raised, they either say that it's been cleaned up or it will be cleaned up.”

“They don't defend it at all, and that's what makes me feel that if we keep the spotlight on it, and keep pressure on, they will eventually have to do something about it.”

But since there is not an incentive, the pace of progress in reforming the textbooks since 9/11 has been “glacial.”

In the meantime, the Saudi clerics' Wahhabist interpretation of Islam continues to spread throughout the Muslim world.

“Indonesia which was traditionally noted as a very moderate, open society, has become more radicalized,” she noted, describing the progress of the ideology in the world's largest Muslim country.

“It's not just confined to Saudi Arabia. They're posted online, these textbooks, and also shipped around the world to Muslim communities by the Saudis, free of charge, using their vast oil wealth. And it's radicalizing societies.”

U.S. Arrests Saudi Student in Bomb Plot

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

The New York Times

Published: February 24, 2011

WASHINGTON - A 20-year-old Saudi Arabian student living in Texas has been arrested by federal agents, who charged him with planning to build bombs for terror attacks in the United States, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

According to an affidavit filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the student, Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, indicated in online research and in a journal that he was considering attacking the Dallas residence of former President George W. Bush as well as hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants, nightclubs and the homes of soldiers who were formerly stationed at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Mr. Aldawsari, a business major at South Plains College in Lubbock, Tex., is in the United States legally on a student visa, the bureau said. He came to the government’s attention on Feb. 1, when a North Carolina supply company reported that he had tried to order five liters of a chemical that can be used to make an explosive.

A subsequent investigation found that he had already obtained large supplies of the other two chemicals needed for the explosive compound, trinitrophenol or TNP, in December, court documents said.

“Aldawsari purchased ingredients to construct an explosive device and was actively researching potential targets in the United States,” said David Kris, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s national security division. “Thanks to the efforts of many agents, analysts and prosecutors, this plot was thwarted before it could advance further.”

There was no indication on Thursday that investigators had found links between Mr. Aldawsari and Al Qaeda or some other foreign militant group. According to the affidavit, he wrote in his journal that he wanted to found a new terrorist group modeled after Al Qaeda, which he would lead, and he indicated that he had been methodically planning for years to commit a terrorist attack.

“I excelled in my studies in high school in order to take advantage of an opportunity for a scholarship to America” that was offered by the Saudi Arabian government, investigators said he wrote. “And now, after mastering the English language, learning how to build explosives, and continuous planning to target the infidel Americans, it is time for Jihad.”

The journal was also said to list “important steps” toward his goal, including obtaining a forged United States birth certificate, applying for a passport and driver’s license, renting cars online, putting bombs in them and taking them to various sites during rush hours, and then leaving the city for a “safe place.”

The affidavit says that in his journal, Mr. Aldawsari said he was inspired by the speeches of Osama Bin Laden and wrote that the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, had produced a “big change” in his thinking. It also contends that he was the writer of a blog called FromFarAway90, published in a mix of English and Arabic.

The Arabic posts on that blog speak at times about war and distress in Palestine and other Muslim lands and about driving infidels out of the Islamic world, and they ask that Allah make the writer a martyr. It is not clear whether Mr. Aldawsari wrote the posts or copied material from elsewhere.

The affidavit also said Mr. Aldawsari, using several e-mail accounts, often sent research to himself about potential targets and explosives. The authorities retrieved several e-mails about manufacturing TNP and other explosives and about how to convert a cellphone into a remote detonator.

Other e-mails, with subject lines like “Nice targets”, contained the names and addresses of three Americans who had been stationed at Abu Ghraib during their military service in Iraq and the locations of 12 reservoirs and dams in Colorado and California. An e-mail entitled “Tyrant’s House” listed the address for Mr. Bush’s house in Dallas.

Mr. Aldawsari also made “numerous Internet searches” related to realistic-looking baby dolls and strollers and viewed photographs of altered dolls, which the F.B.I. said “could indicate” that he was considering concealing explosives in such a doll.

The search of his apartment, the affidavit said, also found flasks and chemical lab equipment, a gas mask, a protective suit and Christmas light wiring that it said was suitable for producing a bomb.

Doing nothing about Saudi promotion of Islamic extremism

By Jennifer Rubin

The Washington Post

On July 9, 2010 the Gulf Institute issued a press release that read in part:

The Institute for Gulf Affairs has released a report comparing the current edition of Saudi textbooks to statements made by the regime, emphasizing the deception of Saudi officials and the failure of U.S. policy to adequately address this issue. The report, entitled "A State of Deception: The Continuation of Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Hate," investigates the Saudi government's refusal to alter its curriculum of intolerance and reform the hateful content of its textbooks.

Four years after a 2006 Saudi government agreement with the U.S. State Department to "remove all hateful and intolerant content" from the Saudi textbooks, a review conducted by IGA reveals that the current edition of Saudi textbooks remain rampant with the same hateful, intolerant, and extremist content as before. Saudi textbooks continue to convey virulent anti-Semitism, instill violent and hateful attitudes toward the other, and sanction the killing of "unbelievers."

The release went on to explain that based on the report, a Saudi ambassador's statement in 2006 (attesting to the kingdom's compliance with the agreement) "and many more like it, are not only patently false, but are also deliberately deceitful and misleading."

So we are we now, more than five months after that report? A State Department official authorized only to speak on background e-mails that there has "been no change since July."

A former Middle East hand tells me that the administration could certainly do more by publicly specifying the offending texts and denouncing the failure to remove the offending language. He says, "There is no reason we need to be silent, but everyone says, 'oh, the King's so old, and so nice, and a reformer, really.'" After all, before he thought better of it the Saudi King did promise to personally see to the scrubbing of Saudi textbooks. But, then, the King was also supposed to play a constructive role in the "peace process." Not so much on either count, it seems.

Leonard Leo, the chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), tells me, "There has been no real progress in terms of Saudi Arabia cleaning up its Government-approved school textbooks, which contain numerous. . .hateful references against Christians and Jews. But without pressure coming to bear on the Saudis from the State Department, you won't see any."

Others are equally glum about the prospects for more serious action to stem the spread of Saudi textbooks peddling Islamic extremism. The problem extends beyond this administration. "This, unfortunately, is not surprising and is indicative of the double standards applied to abuses in the Middle East," Professor Gerald Steinberg, president of Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, tells me via e-mail. "Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that claim to protect human rights generally ignore systematic ant-Semitism and incitement to violence, rather than demanding that Saudi Arabia remove them. Similarly, international institutions including the United Nations give a free pass to such abuses and sources of discrimination and violence." He continues:

Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently published a brief report on Saudi Arabia that supposedly detailed its human rights abuses, yet the vast majority of systematic abuses in Saudi Arabia, such as the absence of religious and sexual freedom, were largely ignored. In sharp contrast, HRW's publications targeting Israel include many more allegations, and are accompanied by major publicity campaigns. The leadership of HRW's Middle East and North Africa division use their resources against Israel rather than demanding the far overdue changes in Saudi Arabia, Libya, and elsewhere."

I spoke to Abe Foxman, head of the ADL, by phone this morning. As he explained, "The problem is that there are no consequences for the failure to live up to their commitments." He points out that King Abdullah tries to project an "image of a changing Saudi Arabia" and has, for example, sponsored interfaith conferences. But, then, he points out, "it is contradictory" for the Saudis to spread extremism through textbooks.

What, if anything, can be done? Most experts agree that a "name and shame" approach offers the most hope for improvement. Foxman argues, "The only impact, the only vehicle is exposure and embarrassment. They do care." But that would take some initiative by the administration.

The lack of serious action by the administration on this issue, however, is not an isolated event. Earlier this year the USCIRF issued a report documenting that religious freedom was of "shrinking importance" in the Obama foreign policy agenda. That has contributed, according to the USCIRF, to the "disturbing trends that threaten freedom of religion across the globe."

For now, the administration's indifference continues. We've done nothing to cajole the Saudis into cleaning up their textbooks, which find their way into Muslim schools around the globe. We've seen bipartisan outrage over the treatment of Christians in Iraq. And what has the administration been doing? Aside from periodically throwing a rhetorical bone to human rights advocates, the Obama team shows little interest in doing something about the victims and potential victims of Islamic extremism. I suppose it gets in the way of its precious "Muslim outreach."

Saudi Man Funded Indonesian Militants

By REUTERS

Published: February 24, 2010

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A Saudi man gave funds to an Indonesian militant group which carried out suicide bomb attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta last year, prosecutors told an Indonesian court Wednesday.

The prosecutors accused Al Khelaiw Ali Abdullah, 55, of transferring 54 million rupiah (3,800 pounds) to a person who later passed on some of the money to a member of a regional militant group led by Noordin Mohammad Top.

They said Top and his group met and agreed to attack the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta after receiving the money. Top was killed in a police shoot-out in September.

Abdullah says he is not guilty.

Top headed a violent wing of regional militant group Jemaah Islamiah. The group carried out simultaneous bomb attacks on the two luxury hotels in July 2009, killing 11 people and wounding 53, as well as several other bombings in Indonesia.

"The defendant has given assistance to perpetrators of terror attacks by giving or lending money or other assets," prosecutor Totok Bambang said in an indictment, which was translated into Arabic for Abdullah.

Abdullah faces between three and 15 years in jail.

"I am not a terrorist. I don't like violence," he told reporters before the trial.

Abdullah said he had never given any money to Syaifudin Zuhri, also known as Syaifudin Djaelani, one of the main organisers of the hotel attacks. He was killed in a raid in October.

"I am an old man and I am very sick. I came to Indonesia to find a cure for my sickness and to relax," Abdullah said in a written statement given to reporters before the trial.

Abdullah had made two trips to Indonesia since November 2008, prosecutors said. During those visits he met Dani Dwi Permana, the suicide bomber who detonated a bomb at the JW Marriott hotel, they said.

Jemaah Islamiah, which wants to create an Islamic state linking Muslim communities in Southeast Asia, was responsible for a string of attacks that killed hundreds of civilians, including the bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta in 2004, and of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in 2003.

Tuesday, prosecutors told the court that an Indonesian man, Muhammad Jibriel Abdul Rahman, had raised money in Saudi Arabia to finance the 2009 hotel attacks.

Tito Karnavian, head of Indonesia's elite anti-terror detachment 88, told Reuters recently the possible flow of money from the Middle East to Indonesia to finance those bombings showed the connection between Indonesia's radical network and al Qaeda had been revived.

Police have previously said al Qaeda helped fund the 2002 Bali bombings and the 2003 JW Marriott bombing in Jakarta, which killed scores of Indonesians and Westerners.

Saudi Arabia defends Islam as complement to human rights

February 7, 2009

GENEVA (AFP) — Saudi Arabia told the UN Human Rights Council on Friday that its status as an Islamic state should safeguard fundamental rights rather than fuel abuse, as it faced western calls for action to stop violations.

Zeid Al-Hussein, vice president of the country's three-year-old human rights commission, acknowledged there were violations in the country, often as a result of "individual practices" rooted in its tribal history.

But he insisted that Islamic law and practices should complement the legal standards the United Nations upholds.

"I wish to emphasize that -- and I weigh my words very carefully -- religious particularities, as correctly viewed in Islam, supplement rather than detract from international human rights standards," he told the Council.

"I am aware that, in most Islamic countries, individual practices do not always reflect the true essence of Islam and much remains to be done to ensure that human rights are promoted and protected," Hussein said.

Saudi Arabia's human rights record was being examined by the body's 47 member states under its first 'universal periodic review.'

"We acknowledge that there are some human rights violations attributable to individual practices," Hussein said.

"Many of these violations fall within the context of domestic violence, to which confusion between the true Islamic Shari'a and customs and traditions is a contributing factor," he added.

Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been scathing of Saudi Arabia, highlighting its uneven application of executions -- 102 in 2008 and 153 in 2007 -- and strict Islamic policies.

Those include the way women are subject to a male guardian's permission to travel, work and marry.

They also complain of abuse of women, torture, widespread arbitrary arrest, indefinite detention without charge or trial and jailing of political activists in the Gulf nation.

Several countries, including Britain, Canada and Norway, recommended that Saudi Arabia abolish the family guardianship system and do more to prevent customs and traditions from harming women and children.

"While progress has been made, particularly in recent years, Saudi Arabia has more to do to ensure that its legal framework and domestic implementation meets international human rights standards," a British delegate told the Council.

Switzerland and Italy called for a moratorium on the death penalty, while several countries criticised corporal punishment.

Hussein said the government was "constantly" trying to prevent domestic violence, control by husbands on their wives and children, pointed to a range of measures introduced over the past two years.

"In actual practice, the concept of guardianship, for example, often loses its connotation of responsibility and care, which are transformed into domination and coercion," he acknowledged.

Hussein also accepted that the kingdom was "not exempt" from some forms of human trafficking, including financial pressures on migrant workers and the smuggling of children to be beggars, and highlighted forthcoming legislation designed to eradicate it.

Human rights groups say that domestic workers especially are subjected to abuse and exploitation that is sometimes tantamount to slavery.

Despite guarantees for freedom of belief, non-Muslim religious worship could only be free within private homes in the Kingdom, Hussein said, largely due to the "sensitivities" that arose with its status as host to Islam's holiest shrines at Mecca and Medina.

"There is no point in discussing this issue from the standpoint of positive man-made law, since religious belief stems from the heart and not from rational proof," he explained.

"This our belief, which we expect others to respect and not contest, in the same way as we respect and do not contest their beliefs," he added.  

109th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 2037

To halt Saudi support for institutions that fund, train, incite, encourage, or in any other way aid and abet terrorism, and to secure full Saudi cooperation in the investigation of terrorist incidents, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

April 28, 2005

Mr. WEINER (for himself, Mr. FERGUSON, Mr. ANDREWS, Mr. BAKER, Ms. BERKLEY, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mr. CARDOZA, Mr. CROWLEY, Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. HASTINGS of Florida, Mr. ISRAEL, Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS of Virginia, Mrs. LOWEY, Mrs. MALONEY, Mrs. MCCARTHY, Ms. MCCOLLUM of Minnesota, Mr. MCNULTY, Mr. MEEHAN, Mr. NADLER, Mr. ROTHMAN, and Mrs. TAUSCHER) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on International Relations

A BILL

To halt Saudi support for institutions that fund, train, incite, encourage, or in any other way aid and abet terrorism, and to secure full Saudi cooperation in the investigation of terrorist incidents, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

(a) Short Title- This Act may be cited as the `Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress makes the following findings:

(1) United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001) mandates that all states `refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts', take `the necessary steps to prevent the commission of terrorist acts', and `deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts'.

(2) The Council on Foreign Relations concluded in an October 2002 report on terrorist financing that `[f]or years, individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia have been the most important source of funds for al-Qaeda, and for years, Saudi officials have turned a blind eye to this problem'.

(3) In a June 2004 report entitled `Update on the Global Campaign Against Terrorist Financing', the Council on Foreign Relations reported that `[w]e find it regrettable and unacceptable that since September 11, 2001, we know of not a single Saudi donor of funds to terrorist groups who has been publicly punished'.

(4) According to the final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, when asked where terrorist leaders would likely locate their bases, military officers and government officials repeatedly listed Saudi Arabia as a prime location.

(5) A report released on January 28, 2005 by Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom found that Saudi Arabia is the state most responsible for the propagation of material promoting hatred, intolerance, and violence within United States mosques and Islamic centers, and that these publications are often official publications of a Saudi ministry or distributed by the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C.

(6) During a July 2003 hearing on terrorism before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security of the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate, David Aufhauser, General Counsel of the Treasury Department, stated that Saudi Arabia is, in many cases, the `epicenter' of financing for terrorism.

(7) The New York Times, citing United States and Israeli sources, reported on September 17, 2003, that at least 50 percent of the current operating budget of Hamas comes from `people in Saudi Arabia'.

(8) The Middle East Media Research Institute concluded in a July 3, 2003, report on Saudi support for Palestinian terrorists that `for decades, the royal family of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been the main financial supporter of Palestinian groups fighting Israel'. The report notes specifically that Saudi-sponsored organizations have funneled over $4,000,000,000 to finance the Palestinian intifada that began in September 2000.

(9) A joint committee of the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives issued a report on July 24, 2003, that quotes various United States Government personnel who complained that the Saudis refused to cooperate in the investigation of Osama bin Laden and his network both before and after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

(10) After the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers housing complex at Dahran, Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 United States Air Force personnel and wounded approximately 400 people, the Government of Saudi Arabia refused to allow United States officials to question individuals held in detention by the Saudis in connection with the attack.

(11) As recounted by counterterrorism officials in a September 2003 issue of Time Magazine, Saudi Arabia denied United States officials access to several suspects in the custody of the Government of Saudi Arabia, including a Saudi Arabian citizen in detention for months who had knowledge of extensive plans to inject poison gas in the New York City subway system.

(12) The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has reported that Saudi Arabian Government-funded textbooks used both in Saudi Arabia and also in North American Islamic schools and mosques have been found to encourage incitement to violence against non-Muslims.

(13) There are indications that, since the May 12, 2003, suicide bombings in Riyadh, the Government of Saudi Arabia is making a more serious effort to combat terrorism.

SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

It is the sense of Congress that--

(1) it is imperative that the Government of Saudi Arabia immediately and unconditionally--

(A) provide complete, unrestricted, and unobstructed cooperation to the United States, including the unsolicited sharing of relevant intelligence in a consistent and timely fashion, in the investigation of groups and individuals that are suspected of financing, supporting, plotting, or committing an act of terror against United States citizens anywhere in the world, including within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia;

(B) permanently close all charities, schools, or other organizations or institutions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that fund, train, incite, encourage, or in any other way aid and abet terrorism anywhere in the world (hereafter in this Act referred to as `Saudi-based terror organizations'), including by means of providing support for the families of individuals who have committed acts of terrorism;

(C) end funding or other support by the Government of Saudi Arabia for charities, schools, and any other organizations or institutions outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that train, incite, encourage, or in any other way aid and abet terrorism anywhere in the world (hereafter in this Act referred to as `offshore terror organizations'), including by means of providing support for the families of individuals who have committed acts of terrorism; and

(D) block all funding from private Saudi citizens and entities to any Saudi-based terror organization or offshore terrorism organization; and

(2) the President, in deciding whether to make the certification under section 4, should judge whether the Government of Saudi Arabia has continued and sufficiently expanded the efforts to combat terrorism that it redoubled after the May 12, 2003, bombing in Riyadh.

SEC. 4. SANCTIONS.

(a) Restrictions on Exports and Diplomatic Travel- Unless the President makes the certification described in subsection (c), the President shall take the following actions:

(1) Prohibit the export to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and prohibit the issuance of a license for the export to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, of--

(A) any defense articles or defense services on the United States Munitions List under section 38 of the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2778) for which special export controls are warranted under such Act (22 U.S.C. 2751 et seq.); and

(B) any item identified on the Commerce Control List maintained under part 774 of title 15, Code of Federal Regulations.

(2) Restrict travel of Saudi diplomats assigned to Washington, District of Columbia, New York, New York, the Saudi Consulate General in Houston, or the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles to a 25-mile radius of Washington, District of Columbia, New York, New York, the Saudi Consulate General in Houston, or the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles, respectively.

(b) Waiver- The President may waive the application of subsection (a) if the President--

(1) determines that it is in the national security interest of the United States to do so; and

(2) submits to the appropriate congressional committees a report that contains the reasons for such determination.

(c) Certification- The President shall transmit to the appropriate congressional committees a certification of any determination made by the President after the date of the enactment of this Act that the Government of Saudi Arabia--

(1) is fully cooperating with the United States in investigating and preventing terrorist attacks;

(2) has permanently closed all Saudi-based terror organizations;

(3) has ended any funding or other support by the Government of Saudi Arabia for any offshore terror organization; and

(4) has exercised maximum efforts to block all funding from private Saudi citizens and entities to offshore terrorist organizations.

SEC. 5. REPORT.

(a) Requirement for Report- Not later than 6 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, and every 12 months thereafter until the President makes the certification described in section 4(c), the Secretary of State shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report on the progress made by the Government of Saudi Arabia toward meeting the conditions described in paragraphs (1) through (4) of section 4(c).

(b) Form- The report submitted under subsection (a) shall be in unclassified form but may include a classified annex.

SEC. 6. APPROPRIATE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES DEFINED.

In this Act, the term `appropriate congressional committees' means the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate and the Committee on International Relations of the House of Representatives.

END

Learning intolerance

Despite Saudi assurances, their religious textbooks still denigrate other faiths and cultures
These schoolbooks divide the world into believers, followers of Wahhabi Islam, and unbelievers

June 3, 2006

NINA SHEA - WASHINGTON POST

Saudi Arabia's public schools have long been cited for demonizing the West as well as Christians, Jews and other unbelievers. But after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, that was all supposed to change.

A 2004 Saudi royal study group recognized the need for reform after finding that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum "encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the `other.'" Since then, the Saudi government has claimed repeatedly that it has revised its educational texts.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, has worked aggressively to spread this message. "The kingdom has reviewed all of its education practices and materials, and has removed any element that is inconsistent with the needs of a modern education," he said on a recent speaking tour. "Not only have we eliminated what might be perceived as intolerance from old textbooks that were in our system, we have implemented a comprehensive internal revision and modernization plan." The Saudi government even took out a full-page ad in the New Republic in December to tout its success at "having modernized our school curricula to better prepare our children for the challenges of tomorrow." A year ago, an embassy spokesman declared: "We have reviewed our educational curriculums. We have removed materials that are inciteful or intolerant towards people of other faiths." The embassy is also distributing a review on curriculum reform to show the textbooks have been moderated.

The problem is: These claims are not true.

A review of a sample of official Saudi textbooks for Islamic studies used during the current academic year reveals that, despite the Saudi government's statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine remains in this area of the public school system. The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the "monotheists") and unbelievers (the "polytheists" and "infidels"). This indoctrination begins in a Grade 1 text and is reinforced and expanded each year, culminating in a Grade 12 text instructing students that their religious obligation includes waging jihad against the infidel to "spread the faith."

Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi dissident who runs the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs, gave Freedom House a dozen of the current, purportedly cleaned-up Saudi Ministry of Education religion textbooks (Freedom House is a U.S. non-governmental organization that monitors political rights and civil liberties worldwide). The copies he obtained were not provided by the government, but by teachers, administrators and families with children in Saudi schools, who slipped them out one by one.

Some of the sources are Shiites and Sunnis from non-Wahhabi traditions, people condemned as "polytheistic" or "deviant" or "bad" in these texts, while others are simply frustrated that these books do so little to prepare young students for the modern world. Freedom House had the texts translated separately by two independent, fluent Arabic speakers.

Religion is the foundation of the Saudi state's political ideology; it is also a key area of Saudi education in which students are taught the interpretation of Islam known as Wahhabism (a movement founded 250 years ago by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab) that is reflected in these textbooks.

Scholars estimate that within the Saudi public school curriculum, Islamic studies make up a quarter to a third of students' weekly classroom hours in lower and middle school, plus several hours each week in high school. Educators who question or dissent from the official interpretation of Islam can face severe reprisals. In November 2005, a Saudi teacher who made positive statements about Jews and the New Testament was fired and sentenced to 750 lashes and a prison term. (He was eventually pardoned after public and international protests.)

The Saudi public school system totals 25,000 schools, educating about 5 million students. In addition, Saudi Arabia runs academies in 19 world capitals that use some of these same religious texts.

Saudi Arabia also distributes its religion texts worldwide to numerous Islamic schools and madrassas that it does not directly operate. Undeterred by Wahhabism's historically fringe status, Saudi Arabia is trying to assert itself as the world's authoritative voice on Islam, a sort of "Vatican" for Islam, as several Saudi officials have stated, and these textbooks are integral to this effort. As the report of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks observed, "Even in affluent countries, Saudi-funded Wahhabi schools are often the only Islamic schools" available.

Education is at the core of the debate over freedom in the Muslim world. Osama bin Laden understands this well; in a recent audiotape he railed against those who would "interfere with school curricula."

The following passages, drawn from the same set of Saudi texts proudly cited in the new 74-page review of curriculum reform now being distributed by the Saudi Embassy, are shaping the views of the next generation of Saudis and Muslims worldwide. Unchanged, they will only harden and deepen hatred, intolerance and violence toward other faiths and cultures. Is this what Riyadh calls reform?

Grade 1

"Every religion other than Islam is false."

"Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____________."

Grade 4

"True belief means . . . that you hate the polytheists and infidels but do not treat them unjustly."

Grade 5

"Whoever obeys the Prophet and accepts the oneness of God cannot maintain a loyal friendship with those who oppose God and His Prophet, even if they are his closest relatives."

"It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and His Prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam."

"A Muslim, even if he lives far away, is your brother in religion. Someone who opposes God, even if he is your brother by family tie, is your enemy in religion."

Grade 6

"Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere endeavour to evict the Christian crusaders from Palestine, so will the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for God, for this is within God's power."

Grade 8

"As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus."

"God told His Prophet, Muhammad, about the Jews, who learned from parts of God's book (the Torah and the Gospels) that God alone is worthy of worship. Despite this, they espouse falsehood through idol-worship, soothsaying, and sorcery. In doing so, they obey the devil. They prefer the people of falsehood to the people of the truth out of envy and hostility. This earns them condemnation and is a warning to us not to do as they did."

"They are the Jews, whom God has cursed and with whom He is so angry that He will never again be satisfied (with them)."

"Some of the people of the Sabbath were punished by being turned into apes and swine. Some of them were made to worship the devil, and not God, through consecration, sacrifice, prayer, appeals for help, and other types of worship. Some of the Jews worship the devil. Likewise, some members of this nation worship the devil, and not God."

"Activity: The student writes a composition on the danger of imitating the infidels."

Grade 9

"The clash between this (Muslim) community (umma) and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as God wills."

"It is part of God's wisdom that the struggle between the Muslim and the Jews should continue until the hour (of judgment)."

"Muslims will triumph because they are right. He who is right is always victorious, even if most people are against him."

Grade 10

The Grade 10 text on jurisprudence teaches that life for non-Muslims (as well as women, and, by implication, slaves) is worth a fraction of that of a "free Muslim male." Blood money is retribution paid to the victim or his heirs for murder or injury:

"Blood money for a free infidel. (Its quantity) is half of the blood money for a male Muslim, whether or not he is `of the book' or not `of the book' (such as a pagan, Zoroastrian, etc.).

"Blood money for a woman: Half of the blood money for a man, in accordance with his religion. The blood money for a Muslim woman is half of the blood money for a male Muslim, and the blood money for an infidel woman is half of the blood money for a male infidel."

Grade 11

"The greeting `Peace be upon you' is specifically for believers. It cannot be said to others."

"If one comes to a place where there is a mixture of Muslims and infidels, one should offer a greeting intended for the Muslims."

"Do not yield to them (Christians and Jews) on a narrow road out of honour and respect."

Grade 12

"Jihad in the path of God, which consists of battling against unbelief, oppression, injustice, and those who perpetrate it, is the summit of Islam. This religion arose through jihad and through jihad was its banner raised high. It is one of the noblest acts, which brings one closer to God, and one of the most magnificent acts of obedience to God."

Nina Shea is director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House

Report Says Saudi Textbooks Teach Intolerance and Violence

By Teresa Sullivan

Washington
25 May 2006

A private research group in Washington says religious textbooks in Saudi Arabia, despite revisions, continue to teach intolerance and violence.

The Washington-based Center for Religious Freedom and the Institute for Gulf Affairs recently analyzed 12 new textbooks the Saudi government says were purged of all intolerant language.

In its study, entitled Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance, the center examined textbooks used in Saudi schools and in Muslim academies in 19 capitals around the world.

The report criticizes what it calls the "Saudi ideology of hatred," saying supposedly revised textbooks still teach that Christians, Jews and other Muslims are "enemies." It says the textbooks condemn all those who do not practice the strict Saudi state-supported Wahhabi sect of Islam.

At a recent conference at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, the head of the Center for Religious Freedom, Nina Shea, described what even the youngest students are being taught.

"It is an ideological curriculum of intolerance against the unbeliever," said Nina Shea. "This includes explicitly Christians, Jews, and other Muslims are all demonized. They assert that peaceful co-existence is not possible. The first grade text condemns Christians and Jews explicitly to hellfire, so it implants the idea that they are evil. It goes against the Islamic teachings that these are heavenly religions. And again, keep in mind this is not religion talking, this is the government of Saudi Arabia."

Professor Ahmed Ibn Saidfuddin of the Imam Ibn Saud University in Riyadh acknowledges the curriculum of Saudi schools does need changing, and he insists it is being done. But he rejects the accusation that what is taught in Saudi schools condones terrorism.

"Of course, we have to be very careful because we are not changing religion here, we are not changing our view of how important Islam is for us," said Ahmed Ibn Saidfuddin. "What we are doing is at least removing, reinterpreting some of the things that might be misinterpreted by extremists. But these curricula have always been in existence for many centuries. They did not produce terrorists."

The Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, also disagrees, saying the Freedom Center report does not accurately describe what is happening in Saudi Arabia. He says the government has worked diligently over the past five years to revise not only textbooks, but to introduce new teaching methods.

But Saudi dissident and scholar Ali Al-Ahmed of the Institute for Gulf Affairs disagrees. He says there is a link between the Saudi teachings and terrorism.

"The Saudi education system is an often ignored front on the war on terror," said Ali Al-Ahmed. "The Saudi 9/11 hijackers were a product of this education system. As children they were indoctrinated with this curriculum that is full of hate and hostility toward the other. So it was not a hard thing for them to be converted al-Qaida terrorists in a matter of months. These textbooks groom millions of children into hateful, angry, and misinformed youths that are just one step away from being the perfect terrorist."

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States were from Saudi Arabia.

Ahmed says reforming the Saudi education system must be an integral part of the war on terrorism.

Saudi Arabia's Export Of Radical Islam

Adrian Morgan

The Family Security Foundation, Inc

Date: January 18, 2007

Even though in both America and Britain there are loud cries of denial from Muslim leaders, FSM Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan recounts how an undercover reporter has unveiled the consistent Saudi-exported hate-mongering and incitement in British mosques.  You think this doesn't happen in American mosques?  Think again.

Saudi Arabia's Export Of Radical Islam - Part Three

On Monday, January 15, UK television aired a documentary on Channel Four, entitled "Undercover Mosques".  This program has caused something of a seismic shock, with reactions to its broadcast being felt in Canada, Pakistan and Israel.  It has also led to government reaction in Australia.

I have uploaded a small QuickTime version of the documentary, which can be accessed here.  It is 106 mb in size.  Alternatively, versions can be found on HotAir and YouTube and HERE (Flash Player required).  The documentary needs to be seen in its entirety.

Channel Four sent an undercover reporter to the Green Lane mosque in Birmingham, where he filmed secretly for four months.  This mosque is the headquarters of the Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith.  The preachers at this mosque were shown inciting hate against "unbelievers", called disparagingly "Kuffaar" or "kaffir".

This of itself should raise concern, but the Markaz Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith has 41 other mosques and faith schools under its influence.  More disturbingly still, it is a registered charity, listed by the Charities Commission (Number 272001), and has been in existence as a charity since January 3, 1976.  The Charities Commission has a lax interpretation of what constitutes a "charity", as I demonstrated earlier in the case of Interpal.  Ahl-e-Hadith claims on the Charities Commission register that its objective is "the advancement of the religion of Islam", though its "area of benefit" is not defined.

The Channel Four documentary showed that the Green Lane mosque's brand of Islam is pure Wahhabism.  Via video links, members of the mosque sometimes communicate directly with the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia.  In one of these sessions, the Grand Mufti is asked by a Birmingham believer for a fatwa about understanding between religions.

The Grand Mufti is asked: "Some people think we shouldn't call Christians and Jews Kuffar and we should establish good relations with them. What's your answer to this?"

The Mufti replies: "This is not true.  Jews and Christians who do not follow the Prophet Mohammed are Kuffar.  They will go to Hell... Anyone who helps or defends an apostate, or a pagan, or an atheist, or anyone who attacks Islam, will be cursed."

The Grand Mufti is Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh. He has condemned the 9/11 attacks, but is supportive of cyber-terrorism. He has issued a fatwa approving the hacking of websites which attacked Islam, saying "if you are unable to respond to it, and you wanted to destroy it and you have the ability to do so, its ok to destroy it because it is an evil website."

Al-Sheikh is the highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia, Chairman of the Senior Ulema, and also a member of the Saudi government.  He objects to men and women mingling ("khalwat") and believes women should always be veiled. On the Channel Four documentary, the Grand Mufti is shown on a Saudi TV broadcast from March 2006 saying: "Tell your children to pray when they are seven, and hit them when they are ten".

The Green Lanes mosque frequently has guest preachers, and one of these is a man calling himself "Abu Usama".  This man is a black American, born in 1964. Formerly from Paterson, New Jersey he became a convert to Islam in 1986.  He now, according to one source, lives in Queens, New York.  He was educated at the Islamic University of Madina, which he attended for eight years, graduating from the College of Da'wah and Usool-ad-Din.  His sermons can be found on the internet, and they are not messages of peace and harmony.

Usama, whose full name is Abu Usaamah Adh-Dhahabi, has worked as a translator, and has been an imam at various mosques in the United States.  His audio cassettes, which are of poor technical standard, can be found in various archives on the internet.  In his native America, Abu Usama has not been making many appearances since 2004, when he fell foul of the Salafi Muslim community. An interesting condemnation by the Salafist Da`ee Abu Awais Abdullah Alee from Philadelphia can be found here or here (MP3 format).

Usama's audio sermons still seem popular amongst the members of the Muslim Students Associations at various US universities and colleges, such as that at Binghamton University, State University of New York.  Here, students can listen to his tape: "If you are visited by the FBI".

In Britain, Usama has a ready audience.  He has given talks at schools and universities.  He is shown in the Channel Four documentary at Green Lane mosque, saying: "No-one loves the kuffaar, no-one loves the kuffaar, not a single person here from the Muslims loves the kuffaar, whether those kuffaar are from the UK or the US.  We love the people of Islam and we hate the people of kufr, we hate the kuffaar."

He describes all non-Muslims as liars, stating: "I don’t believe them, because they are kuffaar, lying is part of their religion.  They are liars, they are terrorists themselves, liars, they will come before the people and talk and they are lying, you can’t believe them, these are pathological liars."

On terrorists, Usama states on a Green Lane mosque internet broadcast: "I don’t agree with those individuals, but at the same time they are closer to me than those criminals of the kuffaar.  He’s better than a million George Bushes,

Osama Bin Laden, and he’s better than a thousand Tony Blairs, because he’s a Muslim."

In another internet broadcast, Usama says: "Allah has created the woman, even if she gains a PhD, deficient.  Her intellect is incomplete.  Deficient.  She may be suffering from hormones that will make her emotional.  It takes two witnesses of the woman to equal the one witness of the man."

It is strange that Usama allows himself to appear in such internet broadcasts and to appear on video, as I found an internet sermon in which he states that it is expressly forbidden to take photographs, or even to draw, any human being, and even an animal.

He is heard on the documentary saying: "Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain." His DVDs, in which his face appears are equally uncompromising.  In one, entitled "The Major Sins", from 2005, he says: "Whoever changes his religion from Islam to anything else - kill him in the Islamic state."

The hate-filled sermons preached at Green Lane mosque were often attended by children, and in one section of footage, a man called Sheikh Al-Jibali states: "What is sad to see is that for many parents they send their children to the kuffaar school.  They allow them to mix with the kuffaar, so that the lifestyle and the beliefs of the kuffaar become deep rooted in the hearts of the kids."

Another preacher at Green Lane mosque is Dr Ijaz Mian, who told a meeting within the mosque: "We have to rule ourselves and we have to rule the others."

The Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith, headquartered at Green Lane mosque, has already been exposed for its segregationist and offensive outlook.  On Sunday, August 21, 2005, the BBC showed a documentary on its Panorama strand "A Question of Leadership", made by journalist John Ware.  In this he examined the Muslim Council of Britain.  At that time, the website of the group urged Muslims to "be different from Jews and Christians" whose "ways are based on sick or deviant views".

John Ware confronted Iqbal Sacranie with this information.  Ahl-e-Hadith was then, and still is, affiliated to the Muslim Council of Britain. Sacranie said: "I'm not a member of Ahle Hadith but it's a membership that we have, it's diversity that exists in the community, having different views on life."

The current head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, has condemned Channel Four, saying the documentary "mischievously tried to prove that key Muslim institutions are teaching exact opposite to Islam commanding Muslims to deal positively and peacefully with those around us." He said the producers were "resorting to the dishonest tactic of selectively quoting from some recorded speeches for purpose of misrepresentation.  Their aim is to attach guilt by association.  This continuing demonization of British Muslims and risible attempt at promoting sectarianism among British Muslims will be firmly rejected."

Bari, echoing the complacency of his predecessor, is refusing to accept that there is a problem in one of the 400 groups that the MCB claims to represent.  He would rather blame non-Muslims for exposing the words coming from Muslim mouths.

The most "devout" worshippers at Green Lane are being offered scholarships to study at Islamic universities in Saudi Arabia.  The aim, states Dr Irfan Al Alawi, a UK academic, is to create a new generation of Muslim imams and teachers.

Another preacher at the Green Lane mosque is Dr Bilal Phillips, who was born in Jamaica and became a convert.  A list of his lectures can be found on his website. He was shown at Green Lane, saying that it is permissible to marry off a girl before puberty.  The Prophet Mohammed became betrothed to a six year old girl, Aisha, when he was in his 50s.  He consummated the marriage when Aisha was nine, according to the Hadiths of Tabari and Bukhari.

On the documentary, Phillips states: "The Prophet Mohammed practically outlined the rules regarding marriage prior to puberty, with his practice he clarified what is permissible and that is why we shouldn’t have any issues about an older man marrying a younger woman, which is looked down upon by this society today, but we know that Prophet Mohammed practiced it, it wasn’t abuse or exploitation, it was marriage."

It was child abuse and would be classed now as statutory rape, no matter how Phillips dresses it up.  Phillips preaches in both the United States and Britain.

The documentary also visited the giant mosque in Regents Park, north London. This mosque had been built with a donation of £2 million ($3.95 million) from the Saudi monarchy.  In the 1990s, the Saudis paid for its educational wing to be built. The mosque houses a bookstore, which is run by a British company, Dar-us Salam, linked to a company of the same name based in Saudi Arabia.

Here, videos of a jihadist nature were on sale. These included videos where one preacher, Feiz Mohammed, a former boxer, makes sermons. In the documentary, this Saudi-educated imam is shown saying: "The peak, the pinnacle, the crest, the highest point, the pivot, the summit, of Islam, is jihad.  Today, many parents, they prevent their children from attending lessons, why?  They fear they might create or place in their hearts, the love, just a bit of love, of sacrificing their lives for Allah. We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this, there is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid, put in their soft tender hearts the zeal of jihad and the love of martyrdom."

This was in a clip taken from a DVD from the "Death Series", by Islam Productions.  This cleric, of Lebanese origin, is based in Australia. Long before Australia's Mufti, Taj Din al-Hilaly, made his comments in September 2006 that women who were not covered by veils invited rape, Feiz Mohammed was making similar remarks.

On March 18 2005, at Bankstown Town Hall in Sydney, he said at a lecture on "Death": "A victim of rape every minute somewhere in the world. Why? No one to blame but herself.  She displayed her beauty to the entire world... Strapless, backless, sleeveless, nothing but satanic skirts, slit skirts, translucent blouses, miniskirts, tight jeans: all this to tease man and appeal to his carnal nature."

Feiz Mohammed said: "Would you put this sheep that you adore in the middle of hungry wolves? No . . . It would be devoured. It's the same situation here.  You're putting this precious girl in front of lustful, satanic eyes of hungry wolves.  What is the consequence?  Catastrophic devastation, sexual harassment, perversion, promiscuity."

Feiz Mohammed is head of the Global Islamic Youth Center in Liverpool, Sydney, which has about 4,000 followers, mostly of Lebanese Muslim origin.  His videos, which were also on sale outside Green Lane mosque in Birmingham, have been found to be on sale in Australia, and there has been strong reaction.

He fled from Australia to Lebanon in November 2005, after 23 people were arrested on November 8 in Melbourne and Sydney on terror charges.  The individuals were accused of plotting an attack upon a nuclear reactor in Lucas Heights in Sydney.

As a result of the revelations in the Channel Four documentary, the leader of the opposition in Australia, Kevin Rudd, has said that Feiz Mohammed should not return to the country.  He has said that the Saudi-educated preachers' comments on the DVDs "add up to an incitement to terrorism."  Kevin Andrews, acting Attorney-General, says the DVDs are "importation of hatred" and says an investigation has been launched.  The premier of New South Wales, Morris Iemma, has asked the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, to have the DVDs withdrawn from sale in Australia, and the federal police are also investigating the matter.

The DVDs of Feiz Mohammed and other radical preachers were pointed out to the management of the Regents Park Mosque, and they were subsequently withdrawn from its bookshop to be reviewed.

The Director General of Regents Park Mosque is Saudi-born Dr Ahmed al-Dubayan.  When he took over as director of the mosque and Islamic Cultural Center (ICC), he was granted diplomatic status by the Saudi government.  This privilege has been granted to every head of the mosque since it began, even if they were not Saudi nationals.

This diplomatic status came in handy for Dubayan, when he was granted diplomatic immunity during a sexual discrimination case launched by his personal secretary, a woman called Mrs Nahid Mahmoud.  She had been accused of "witchcraft" and "black magic".  She won her case on September 12, 2006.

Dubayan told Channel Four: "It is false and misleading to make the sweeping generalization that the teachings from Saudi Arabia promote extremism, and it is also false to assert that the ICC is dominated by the influence of such teachings.

The Saudi government told the program makers: "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an Islamic state, governed in accordance with the teachings of the Shari'a.  Islam is a religion of tolerance and respects the rights of all people, regardless of gender, age, religion or race.  Islam is a religion without national borders.  There is no such thing as "the religious establishment" in Saudi Arabia.  Here, as in every society, one can find extremists, as well as conservatives and moderates.  Saudi Arabia does not support radical or extreme ideology but strongly condemns all those seeking to politicize Islam, preaching, inciting or fostering hatred and violence, or legitimizing terrorist activities.  To this end, many imams have been re-educated in recent years and a misguided few have been dismissed."

Another preacher featured on the DVDs on sale at Green Lane mosque, and who is based in Britain, is an American convert, Sheikh Khalid Yasin.  He lectures around the world.  In the US, he appeared last year at Penn State university, a guest of the Muslim Students Association.

Yasin, who also studied in Saudi Arabia, has said on the DVD "Changing the World through Da'wah": We don't need to go to the Christians or the Jews, debating with them about the filth which they believe.  We Muslims have been ordered to do brainwashing!!  Because the kuffaar - they are doing brain defiling...... You are watching the kaffir TVs, and your wife is watching it right now, and your children are watching it right now, and they are being polluted, and they are being penetrated, and they are being infected, so that your children and you go out as Muslims and you come back to the house as kaffirs."

On a DVD called "Some Advice to the Muslim women" he states: "This whole delusion of the equality of women is a bunch of foolishness. There's no such thing."

On another, entitled "Jihad or Terrorism" he says: "Now missionaries, from the World Health Organization, and Christian - and Christian groups, went into Africa and inoculated people, for diptheria, malaria, yellow fever, and they put in the medicine, the AIDS virus. Which is a conspiracy!"

Another mosque was featured in the documentary, based in Sparkbrook, Birmingham. Here, a deputy headmaster of an Islamic high school, Darul Uloom in Birmingham, told a conference that he disagreed with the word "democracy". He stated: "They should call it... kuffrocracy, that's their plan.  It's the hidden cancerous aim of these people."  The teacher has since been removed from his post at the school.

At a mosque in Derby, also run by the Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith who govern Green Lane mosque.  Here, a traveling preacher called Dr Ijaz Mian praises the Saudi religious police, or muttawa, as they can imprison people for not praying. Mian studied Islam for six years at the Ibn Saud University in Riyadh, where Abdullah el-Faisal also studied. He says he wants religious police in Britain.  He states that Muslims should not accept democracy, and claims that Muslims will one day take over Britain.

The Sparkbrook mosque is run by the UK Islamic Mission (UKIM), a group described by Tony Blair as "extremely valued by the government particularly for its multi-faith and multicultural activities".  The UKIM, which runs Sparkbrook, works with the police, yet one speaker at the mosque is shown saying that Muslims should not work with police.  In the documentary, a preacher at this Mosque is shown to be praising the Taliban.

The imam states: "There was an individual who was killed in Afghanistan recently.  A Muslim name, he came from a Pakistani family. Do you know what they had written in a tabloid newspaper?  'Hero of Islam'. 'Hero of Islam' who went into Muslim Afghanistan to kill Muslims. Why? Because their crime is implementing Islam.  The 'Hero of Islam' is the one who separated his head from his shoulders."

The soldier referred to was 24-year old Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi, who was killed in Helmand province in 2006. When Anjem Choudary, former UK leader of Al-Muhajiroun, wrote a polemic against this soldier on his website, Lance Corporal Hashmi's family were deeply upset.  The soldier’s brother Zeeshar had said: "You can be proud to be Muslim and British - the two don't have to be separate."

For many Muslims subjected to Saudi Arabian teachings, it appears that this notion is completely alien.

How a British jihadi saw the light

Ed Hussain, once a proponent of radical Islam in London, tells how his time as a teacher in Saudi Arabia led him to turn against extremism

The Sunday Times

April 21, 2007

During our first two months in Jeddah, Faye and I relished our new and luxurious lifestyle: a shiny jeep, two swimming pools, domestic help, and a tax-free salary. The luxury of living in a modern city with a developed infrastructure cocooned me from the frightful reality of life in Saudi Arabia.

My goatee beard and good Arabic ensured that I could pass for an Arab.

But looking like a young Saudi was not enough: I had to act Saudi, be Saudi. And here I failed.

My first clash with Saudi culture came when, being driven around in a bulletproof jeep, I saw African women in black abayas tending to the rubbish bins outside restaurants, residences and other busy places.

“Why are there so many black cleaners on the streets?” I asked the driver. The driver laughed. “They’re not cleaners. They are scavengers; women who collect cardboard from all across Jeddah and then sell it. They also collect bottles, drink cans, bags.”

“You don’t find it objectionable that poor immigrant women work in such undignified and unhygienic conditions on the streets?”

“Believe me, there are worse jobs women can do.”

Though it grieves me to admit it, the driver was right. In Saudi Arabia women indeed did do worse jobs. Many of the African women lived in an area of Jeddah known as Karantina, a slum full of poverty, prostitution and disease.

A visit to Karantina, a perversion of the term “quarantine”, was one of the worst of my life. Thousands of people who had been living in Saudi Arabia for decades, but without passports, had been deemed “illegal” by the government and, quite literally, abandoned under a flyover.

A non-Saudi black student I had met at the British Council accompanied me. “Last week a woman gave birth here,” he said, pointing to a ramshackle cardboard shanty. Disturbed, I now realised that the materials I had seen those women carrying were not always for sale but for shelter.

I had never expected to see such naked poverty in Saudi Arabia.

At that moment it dawned on me that Britain, my home, had given refuge to thousands of black Africans from Somalia and Sudan: I had seen them in their droves in Whitechapel. They prayed, had their own mosques, were free and were given government housing.

Many Muslims enjoyed a better lifestyle in non-Muslim Britain than they did in Muslim Saudi Arabia. At that moment I longed to be home again.

All my talk of ummah seemed so juvenile now. It was only in the comfort of Britain that Islamists could come out with such radical utopian slogans as one government, one ever expanding country, for one Muslim nation. The racist reality of the Arab psyche would never accept black and white people as equal.

Standing in Karantina that day, I reminisced and marvelled over what I previously considered as wrong: mixed-race, mixed-religion marriages. The students to whom I described life in modern multi-ethnic Britain could not comprehend that such a world of freedom, away from “normal” Saudi racism, could exist.

Racism was an integral part of Saudi society. My students often used the word “nigger” to describe black people.

Even dark-skinned Arabs were considered inferior to their lighter-skinned cousins. I was living in the world’s most avowedly Muslim country, yet I found it anything but. I was appalled by the imposition of Wahhabism in the public realm, something I had implicitly sought as an Islamist.

Part of this local culture consisted of public institutions being segregated and women banned from driving on the grounds that it would give rise to “licentiousness”. I was repeatedly astounded at the stares Faye got from Saudi men and I from Saudi women.

Faye was not immodest in her dress. Out of respect for local custom, she wore the long black abaya and covered her hair in a black scarf. In all the years I had known my wife, never had I seen her appear so dull. Yet on two occasions she was accosted by passing Saudi youths from their cars. On another occasion a man pulled up beside our car and offered her his phone number.

In supermarkets I only had to be away from Faye for five minutes and Saudi men would hiss or whisper obscenities as they walked past. When Faye discussed her experiences with local women at the British Council they said: “Welcome to Saudi Arabia.”

After a month in Jeddah I heard from an Asian taxi driver about a Filipino worker who had brought his new bride to live with him in Jeddah. After visiting the Balad shopping district the couple caught a taxi home. Some way through their journey the Saudi driver complained that the car was not working properly and perhaps the man could help push it. The passenger obliged. Within seconds the Saudi driver had sped off with the man’s wife in his car and, months later, there was still no clue as to her whereabouts.

We had heard stories of the abduction of women from taxis by sex-deprived Saudi youths. At a Saudi friend’s wedding at a luxurious hotel in Jeddah, women dared not step out of their hotel rooms and walk to the banqueting hall for fear of abduction by the bodyguards of a Saudi prince who also happened to be staying there.

Why had the veil and segregation not prevented such behaviour? My Saudi acquaintances, many of them university graduates, argued strongly that, on the contrary, it was the veil and other social norms that were responsible for such widespread sexual frustration among Saudi youth.

At work the British Council introduced free internet access for educational purposes. Within days the students had downloaded the most obscene pornography from sites banned in Saudi Arabia, but easily accessed via the British Council’s satellite connection. Segregation of the sexes, made worse by the veil, had spawned a culture of pent-up sexual frustration that expressed itself in the unhealthiest ways.

Using Bluetooth technology on mobile phones, strangers sent pornographic clips to one another. Many of the clips were recordings of homosexual acts between Saudis and many featured young Saudis in orgies in Lebanon and Egypt. The obsession with sex in Saudi Arabia had reached worrying levels: rape and abuse of both sexes occurred frequently, some cases even reaching the usually censored national press.

My students told me about the day in March 2002 when the Muttawa [the religious police] had forbidden firefighters in Mecca from entering a blazing school building because the girls inside were not wearing veils. Consequently 15 young women burnt to death, but Wahhabism held its head high, claiming that God’s law had been maintained.

As a young Islamist, I organised events at college and in the local community that were strictly segregated and I believed in it. Living in Saudi Arabia, I could see the logical outcome of such segregation.

In my Islamist days we relished stating that Aids and other sexually transmitted diseases were the result of the moral degeneracy of the West. Large numbers of Islamists in Britain hounded prostitutes in Brick Lane and flippantly quoted divorce and abortion rates in Britain. The implication was that Muslim morality was superior. Now, more than ever, I was convinced that this too was Islamist propaganda, designed to undermine the West and inject false confidence in Muslim minds.

I worried whether my observations were idiosyncratic, the musings of a wandering mind. I discussed my troubles with other British Muslims working at the British Council. Jamal, who was of a Wahhabi bent, fully agreed with what I observed and went further. “Ed, my wife wore the veil back home in Britain and even there she did not get as many stares as she gets when we go out here.” Another British Muslim had gone as far as tinting his car windows black in order to prevent young Saudis gaping at his wife.

The problems of Saudi Arabia were not limited to racism and sexual frustration.

In contemporary Wahhabism there are two broad factions. One is publicly supportive of the House of Saud, and will endorse any policy decision reached by the Saudi government and provide scriptural justification for it. The second believes that the House of Saud should be forcibly removed and the Wahhabi clerics take charge. Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda are from the second school.

In Mecca, Medina and Jeddah I met young men with angry faces from Europe, students at various Wahhabi seminaries. They reminded me of my extremist days.

They were candid in discussing their frustrations with Saudi Arabia. The country was not sufficiently Islamic; it had strayed from the teachings of Wahhabism. They were firmly on the side of the monarchy and the clerics who supported it. Soon they were to return to the West, well versed in Arabic, fully indoctrinated by Wahhabism, to become imams in British mosques.

By the summer of 2005 Faye and I had only eight weeks left in Saudi Arabia before we would return home to London. Thursday, July 7, was the beginning of the Saudi weekend. Faye and I were due to lunch with Sultan, a Saudi banker who was financial adviser to four government ministers. I wanted to gauge what he and his wife, Faye’s student, thought about life inside the land of their birth.

On television that morning we watched the developing story of a power cut on the London Underground. As the cameras focused on King’s Cross, Edgware Road, Aldgate and Russell Square, I looked on with a mixture of interest and homesickness. Soon the power-cut story turned into shell-shocked reportage of a series of terrorist bombings.

My initial suspicion was that the perpetrators were Saudis. My experience of them, their virulence towards my non-Muslim friends, their hate-filled textbooks, made me think that Bin Laden’s Saudi soldiers had now targeted my home town. It never crossed my mind that the rhetoric of jihad introduced to Britain by Hizb ut-Tahrir could have anything to do with such horror.

My sister avoided the suicide attack on Aldgate station by four minutes. On the previous day London had won the Olympic bid. At the British Council we had celebrated along with the nation that was now in mourning.

The G8 summit in Scotland had also been derailed by events further south. The summit, thanks largely to the combined efforts of Tony Blair and Bob Geldof, had been set to tackle poverty in Africa. Now it was forced to address Islamist terrorism; Arab grievances had hijacked the agenda again.

The fact that hundreds of children die in Africa every day would be of no relevance to a committed Islamist. In the extremist mind the plight of the tiny Palestinian nation is more important than the deaths of millions of black Africans. Let them die, they’re not Muslims, would be the unspoken line of argument. As an Islamist it was only the suffering of Muslims that had moved me. Now human suffering mattered to me, regardless of religion.

Faye and I were glued to the television for hours. Watching fellow Londoners come out of Tube stations injured and mortified, but facing the world with a defiant sense of dignity, made me feel proud to be British.

We met Sultan and his wife at an Indian restaurant near the British Council. Sultan was in his early thirties and his wife in her late twenties. They had travelled widely and seemed much more liberal than most Saudis I had met. Behind a makeshift partition, the restaurant surroundings were considered private and his wife, to my amazement, removed her veil.

We discussed our travels.

Sultan spoke fondly of his time in London, particularly his placement at Coutts as a trainee banker. We then moved on to the subject uppermost in my mind, the terrorist attacks on London. My host did not really seem to care. He expressed no real sympathy or shock, despite speaking so warmly of his time in London.

“I suppose they will say Bin Laden was behind the attacks. They blamed us for 9/11,” he said.

Keen to take him up on his comment, I asked him: “Based on your education in Saudi Arabian schools, do you think there is a connection between the form of Islam children are taught here and the action of 15 Saudi men on September 11?”

Without thinking, his immediate response was, “No. No, because Saudis were not behind 9/11. The plane hijackers were not Saudi men. One thousand two hundred and forty-six Jews were absent from work on that day and there is the proof that they, the Jews, were behind the killings. Not Saudis.”

It was the first time I heard so precise a number of Jewish absentees. I sat there pondering on the pan-Arab denial of the truth, a refusal to accept that the Wahhabi jihadi terrorism festering in their midst had inflicted calamities on the entire world.

In my class the following Sunday, the beginning of the Saudi working week, were nearly 60 Saudis. Only one mentioned the London bombings.

“Was your family harmed?” he asked.

“My sister missed an explosion by four minutes but otherwise they’re all fine, thank you.”

The student, before a full class, sighed and said: “There are no benefits in terrorism. Why do people kill innocents?”

Two others quickly gave him his answer in Arabic: “There are benefits. They will feel how we feel.”

I was livid. “Excuse me?” I said. “Who will know how it feels?”

“We don’t mean you, teacher,” said one. “We are talking about people in England. You are here. They need to know how Iraqis and Palestinians feel.”

“The British people have been bombed by the IRA for years,” I retorted. “Londoners were bombed by Hitler during the blitz. The largest demonstrations against the war in Iraq were in London. People in Britain don’t need to be taught what it feels like to be bombed.”

Several students nodded in agreement. The argumentative ones became quiet. Were they convinced by what I had said? It was difficult to tell.

Two weeks after the terrorist attacks in London another Saudi student raised his hand and asked: “Teacher, how can I go to London?”

“Much depends on your reason for going to Britain. Do you want to study or just be a tourist?”

“Teacher, I want to go London next month. I want bomb, big bomb in London, again. I want make jihad!”

“What?” I exclaimed. Another student raised both hands and shouted: “Me too! Me too!”

Other students applauded those who had just articulated what many of them were thinking. I was incandescent. In protest I walked out of the classroom to a chorus of jeering and catcalls.

My time in Saudi Arabia bolstered my conviction that an austere form of Islam (Wahhabism) married to a politicised Islam (Islamism) is wreaking havoc in the world. This anger-ridden ideology, an ideology I once advocated, is not only a threat to Islam and Muslims, but to the entire civilised world.

I vowed, in my own limited way, to fight those who had hijacked my faith, defamed my prophet and killed thousands of my own people: the human race. I was encouraged when Tony Blair announced on August 5, 2005, plans to proscribe an array of Islamist organisations that operated in Britain, foremost among them Hizb ut-Tahrir.

At the time I was impressed by Blair’s resolve. The Hizb should have been outlawed a decade ago and so spared many of us so much misery. Sadly, the legislation was shelved last year amid fears that a ban would only add to the group’s attraction, so it remains both legal and active today. But it is not too late.

Saudis' role in Iraq insurgency outlined

Sunni extremists from Saudi Arabia make up half the foreign fighters in Iraq, many suicide bombers, a U.S. official says.

By Ned Parker,

Los Angeles Times

July 15, 2007

BAGHDAD - Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.

Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has given such a breakdown on the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.

He said 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis.

The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of battling an enemy whose top source of foreign fighters is a key ally that at best has not been able to prevent its citizens from undertaking bloody attacks in Iraq, and at worst shares complicity in sending extremists to commit attacks against U.S. forces, Iraqi civilians and the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

The problem casts a spotlight on the tangled web of alliances and enmities that underlie the political relations between Muslim nations and the U.S.

Complicated past

In the 1980s, the Saudi intelligence service sponsored Sunni Muslim fighters for the U.S.-backed Afghan mujahedin battling Soviet troops in Afghanistan. At the time, Saudi intelligence cultivated another man helping the Afghan fighters, Osama bin Laden, the future leader of Al Qaeda who would one day turn against the Saudi royal family and mastermind the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Indeed, Saudi Arabia has long been a source of a good portion of the money and manpower for Al Qaeda: 15 of the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks were Saudi.

Now, a group that calls itself Al Qaeda in Iraq is the greatest short-term threat to Iraq's security, U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner said Wednesday.

The group, one of several Sunni Muslim insurgent groups operating in Baghdad and beyond, relies on foreigners to carry out suicide attacks because Iraqis are less likely to undertake such strikes, which the movement hopes will provoke sectarian violence, Bergner said. Despite its name, the extent of the group's links to Bin Laden's network, based along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier, is unclear.

The Saudi government does not dispute that some of its youths are ending up as suicide bombers in Iraq, but says it has done everything it can to stop the bloodshed.

"Saudis are actually being misused. Someone is helping them come to Iraq. Someone is helping them inside Iraq. Someone is recruiting them to be suicide bombers. We have no idea who these people are. We aren't getting any formal information from the Iraqi government," said Gen. Mansour Turki, spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry.

"If we get good feedback from the Iraqi government about Saudis being arrested in Iraq, probably we can help," he said.

Defenders of Saudi Arabia pointed out that it has sought to control its lengthy border with Iraq and has fought a bruising domestic war against Al Qaeda since Sept. 11.

"To suggest they've done nothing to stem the flow of people into Iraq is wrong," said a U.S. intelligence official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "People do get across that border. You can always ask, 'Could more be done?' But what are they supposed to do, post a guard every 15 or 20 paces?"

Deep suspicions

Others contend that Saudi Arabia is allowing fighters sympathetic to Al Qaeda to go to Iraq so they won't create havoc at home.

Iraqi Shiite lawmaker Sami Askari, an advisor to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, accused Saudi officials of a deliberate policy to sow chaos in Baghdad.

"The fact of the matter is that Saudi Arabia has strong intelligence resources, and it would be hard to think that they are not aware of what is going on," he said.

Askari also alleged that imams at Saudi mosques call for jihad, or holy war, against Iraq's Shiites and that the government had funded groups causing unrest in Iraq's largely Shiite south. Sunni extremists regard Shiites as unbelievers.

Other Iraqi officials said that though they believed Saudi Arabia, a Sunni fundamentalist regime, had no interest in helping Shiite-ruled Iraq, it was not helping militants either. But some Iraqi Shiite leaders say the Saudi royal family sees the Baghdad government as a proxy for its regional rival, Shiite-ruled Iran, and wants to unseat it.

With its own border with Iraq largely closed, Saudi fighters take what is now an established route by bus or plane to Syria, where they meet handlers who help them cross into Iraq's western deserts, the senior U.S. military officer said.

He suggested it was here that Saudi Arabia could do more, by implementing rigorous travel screenings for young Saudi males. Iraqi officials agreed.

"Are the Saudis using all means possible? Of course not…. And we think they need to do more, as does Syria, as does Iran, as does Jordan," the senior officer said. An estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters cross into Iraq each month, according to the U.S. military.

"It needs to be addressed by the government of Iraq head on. They have every right to stand up to a country like Saudi Arabia and say, 'Hey, you are killing thousands of people by allowing your young jihadists to come here and associate themselves with an illegal worldwide network called Al Qaeda."

Both the White House and State Department declined to comment for this article.

Turki, the Saudi spokesman, defended the right of his citizens to travel without restriction.

"If you leave Saudi Arabia and go to other places and find somebody who drags them to Iraq, that is a problem we can't do anything about," Turki said. He added that security officials could stop people from leaving the kingdom only if they had information on them.

U.S. officials had not shared with Iraqi officials information gleaned from Saudi detainees, but this has started to change, said an Iraqi source, who asked not to be identified. For example, U.S. officials provided information about Saudi fighters and suicide bombers to Iraqi security officials who traveled to Saudi Arabia last week.

Iraqi advisor Askari asserted that Vice President Dick Cheney, in a visit to Saudi Arabia in May, pressured officials to crack down on militant traffic to Iraq. But that message has not yet produced results, Askari said.

The close relationship between the U.S. and oil-rich Saudi Arabia has become increasingly difficult.

Saudi leaders in early February undercut U.S. diplomacy in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute by brokering, in Mecca, an agreement to form a Fatah-Hamas "unity" government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And King Abdullah took Americans by surprise by declaring at an Arab League gathering that the U.S. presence in Iraq was illegitimate.

U.S. officials remain sensitive about the relationship. Asked why U.S. officials in Iraq had not publicly criticized Saudi Arabia the way they had Iran or Syria, the senior military officer said, "Ask the State Department. This is a political juggernaut."

Last week when U.S. military spokesman Bergner declared Al Qaeda in Iraq the country's No. 1 threat, he released a profile of a thwarted suicide bomber, but said he had not received clearance to reveal his nationality. The bomber was a Saudi national, the senior military officer said Saturday.

Would-be suicide bomber

The fighter, a young college graduate whose mother was a teacher and father a professor, had been recruited in a mosque to join Al Qaeda in Iraq. He was given money for a bus ticket and a phone number to call in Syria to contact a handler who would smuggle him into Iraq.

Once the young Saudi made it in, he was under the care of Iraqis who gave him his final training and indoctrination. At the very last minute, the bomber decided he didn't want to blow himself up. He was supposed to have been one of two truck bombers on a bridge outside Ramadi. When the first truck exploded, he panicked and chose not to trigger his own detonator, and Iraqi police arrested him.

Al Qaeda in Iraq and its affiliate groups number anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 individuals, the senior U.S. military officer said. Iraqis make up the majority of members, facilitating attacks, indoctrinating, fighting, but generally not blowing themselves up. Iraqis account for roughly 10% of suicide bombers, according to the U.S. military.

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